by D. L. Snell
I sat on the bed. My leg was hurting, but there was nothing I could do. I’m not a doctor, and a nice cleansing bubble bath didn’t feel like the right thing to do at that moment. I looked at the shin in horror. It had started to fester. A pus-like material was bubbling out of my leg like rancid EZ Cheeze. The skin around the teeth marks was starting to swell, and what looked like varicose veins, or spider veins, had encircled the infected area.
It was starting.
I was physically and emotionally drained, yet I was getting hungry. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on what I was craving, but I was becoming more ravenous by the moment. My mouth was dry, and I caught myself just staring off into space. If this was just like the movies, I was probably changing already. In fact, now I know that I was definitely changing. Or more honestly that I am changing as I speak.
I thought of the gun in the closet, the razors underneath the bathroom sink, even the assorted pills that Linda and I had lying around in the bathroom closet. But was suicide the answer? I didn’t think so, and I still don’t. I don’t think it would matter. I would probably still rise again as one of those things.
Even now, I can feel the effect of what Dietrich called the fever. Its tendrils, hot and pulsating, massage my brain like small epileptic signals. It hurts, but the pain is hypnotic. I go away for moments at a time. When I come back to myself, I am scared but also satisfied. I fear that, sometime soon, I will not come back to myself at all. Maybe it isn’t so bad. But I know it is. Deep down, I know.
I am scared to death of what lurks outside in the night. I want it all to go away. I can’t stand another encounter with those things. But what I am even more scared of is that, at any moment, I may walk downstairs, on something other than my own free will, unlock the kitchen door, and invite the darkness into me and become one with my nightmare.
I will try to exist as myself for a little while longer, for as long as I can, until the fever takes me. But I will lose in the end. . . . You all will.
Graveyard Slot
Cavan Scott
Hilda settled herself into her favorite comfy chair. It had been a long day. Gingerly, she flexed the swollen toes beneath her slippers, flinching at the sharp pain of cramped muscle. She had been longing for this sit down all day. In the seat beside her, Bert grunted and scrabbled for the remote control.
“Oh Bert,” Hilda croaked. “How’s about a cup of tea?”
“You know where the kitchen is,” came the gruff reply. “I’ll have a coffee.”
“Really Bert, I’ve been on my feet for hours! Is it too much to ask—”
“Yes,” Bert cut her off. “At the moment it is.”
“Well, that’s charming it is. I slave all day . . .”
The TV blared on, kicking in at that volume only old folk can stand: somewhere between deafening and the sound of Armageddon.
“Sorry.” Bert grinned, displaying a row of yellowing, ragged teeth. “Can’t hear you. You’ll have to speak up!”
The din from the set smothered Hilda’s most unladylike response. Moaning loudly to her unsympathetic audience, she struggled back to her feet, feeling her back creak ominously as she did. Before turning for the kitchen, she glanced over half-moon glasses at the television screen.
“Oh Bert, you’re not watching that show are you.”
Bert ignored her, transfixed by the boob-tube.
“It’s disgusting, that’s what it is.”
“What’re you saying now woman?”
“Disgusting! You should know better at your age.”
Bert dismissed her with a wave of his liver-spotted hand. “Ah, what do you know? It’s the best thing on the box by miles. All the guys down the Retreat watch it. Now, leave me in peace, will you?”
Hilda’s eyes rolled heavenward as she shuffled from the room, just as the first blood of the episode speckled the screen.
“Hey-hey, they’ve got themselves a gusher!” Bert cried excitingly before shouting over his shoulder to his wife. “Hilda, don’t forget to put sugar in mine.”
Sarah’s tongue explored the inside of her mouth. She had no idea why this was important (after all she had bigger concerns than her dental plan), but somehow the action seemed to make sense. Start small and work up. If you can work out what’s broken in there, you can move bone by bone through your ravished body, cataloguing every fracture and tear. The tip of her tongue met recently ripped gum. One, two . . . God, three teeth lost. No wonder her mouth tasted like she’d been gargling with Type O. No time to worry about what had happened to the missing molars, though. Nope, now she had to work on bigger problems. Like how to open her eyes.
The harsh light streaming from the hole above singed her retina as she cautiously took her first glance at her new world. Up there, in the realm of birdsong and lush fresh grass, the day was beginning to wane. Down here, in the cavern she now occupied, darkness was swarming in from every corner. Ignoring her own cry as she carefully pushed herself up, she took in her surroundings. Her arm complained as she grunted into a sitting position, but at least it wasn’t the sharp agony of bone grating bone. She remembered the harsh punishment from deep within her flesh when she’d tumbled from the climbing frame as a kid. This was nothing like it. She was bruised, sure, but nothing seemed to have snapped. Miracles do happen, she thought grimly as she gazed up to the rocky ceiling. There was no worried father to haul her into his arms this time, and she’d sure as hell fallen from more than just a climbing frame. The yawning gash in the rock above must have been fifteen feet up or thereabouts.
As she rubbed her pounding arm, Sarah tried to piece it all together. She had been walking. Yeah, that was it. But where? Oh, of course. Back from seeing Tony. Back from their—what was a nice way of putting it—their rendezvous. Just walking through the fields at the bottom of old Owen’s farm when . . .
The ground. That had been it. The ground beneath her feet had been there one minute and gone the next. She remembered falling and then . . . nothing. The lump on her head was enough to inform her why the rest was a little hazy.
But where was she? Her eyes narrowed as she peered into the skin-chilling gloom beyond the shard of light that spotlighted her battered and bloody form.
“Well done, Sarah,” she said aloud. “What a marvelous hole you’ve discovered.”
Around her, cavern walls rose to the remnants of her entrance. They were ragged, but somehow they looked unnatural. Whatever this place was, it was manmade. A mine? At least that would explain why the ground had swallowed her whole. She’d grown up with stories of folk tumbling into old shafts, weakened by the onslaught of time. Never thought she’d end up as one of those tales herself.
Her ankle smarted, but it held as she finally got to her feet, brushing crud off her jeans. Yeah, manmade for sure. The old wooden boxes in the corner of the cave proved that at least. Limping slightly, she moved over to them. Decades of dust kicked up as she lifted one of the warped lids. Empty.
Sarah wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find. Shovels. Picks maybe. Anything that would help her out of here. There was no point in shouting for assistance. She’d been all alone as she’d tramped through the long grass. That was the whole point. “No one can risk seeing us together,” Tony had explained one day, as if speaking to a child. “If she found out . . .”
Sarah hated when he talked to her like that. She wasn’t stupid. Well, she was stupid enough to be fooling around with him, but . . .
This wasn’t helping. There was an escape to be had. Sarah started to run through the alternatives.
Plan A: Climb back out.
This of course could lead to a whole lot of slipping and dashing out one’s brains on the rocks beneath. Nope, she’d been lucky enough to keep her grey matter in her skull thus far; there was no need to tempt fate. So then, back to the proverbial drawing board.
Plan B: Wander into the dark corridors that led off from the cavern and try to find an exit.
Sarah stared at the nearest doorway, which ha
d been clouded before her eyes had adjusted to the shade. The pitch-black murkiness stared back. She’d be venturing into the unknown, blundering around blind until she either tumbled down a pothole to dash the aforementioned brain, or until she walked into a very hard and immovable dead-end.
Not the best of options. Next?
Plan C: Begin digging through the wall with a nail file until she tunneled her way to freedom.
Promising. That could work. If she were indeed the female equivalent of James Bond and actually possessed a nail file. Absently, Sarah patted her pockets. Something bulged against her backside. What was this? Of course. Her wonderful cheap lighter, bought at the drug store for a sneaky post-coital cigarette. Sordid affairs be praised. At least something about her grubby little encounter with Tony would prove beneficial today. The flame burst from the red plastic at one flick of the dial. She had fire, and where there was fire, there was light. No darker than dark corridors to traverse any more. Plan B was open for modification and possible success. Granted she could still get lost in a labyrinth of creaking, twisted passages, but hey, it was worth a shot. If Tony hadn’t had swiped the last of her Marlboros, she would have had a victory smoke to celebrate her impending salvation. Ah well, there was no more time to lose. She’d better get moving before—
The noise was deafening in the confines of the cave. Sarah froze, hair standing to attention from the bottom of her spine to the nape of her neck. Someone else was down here. For a second, she stood there, ears straining for any other signs of life. There was nothing. What had it been? Could a gust of wind have knocked something over? It had sounded like a billy-can or something hitting the deck. If it had been a breeze, she should head in that direction; the wind must have come from somewhere. But what if it wasn’t a breeze? What if a human hand had brushed by the can? She hadn’t considered the other forms of danger that could be lurking in the shadows. Someone might be living down here, someone who wouldn’t take too kindly to her little visit. And what if it wasn’t even human? Had there been stories of wild animals living down here after the miners had moved out? She was sure she could recall something. Wolves? Was that it? Or bears? Good god, what would she do if she came face to face with a grizzled grizzly down here? Have both her arms pulled off and her skull split open by its maw, of course.
Still there was nothing. Not a howl nor a growl. Just silence.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
She almost jumped at the sudden voice until she realized it was her own. What the hell did she think she was doing? She might as well be yelling out ‘Hello there. Slightly scuffed thirty-one-year-old woman here, ready for you to ravish / maul / break into little pieces (delete as appropriate).’ As her echo ricocheted from the cavern walls, she relaxed. There was obviously no one else down here. In fact, if there was, it wouldn’t probably be such a bad thing. They could at least point her in the right direction.
But there was no need to take unreasonable risks. Shivering slightly in the chill, Sarah spun on her sneakered heel and strode purposely in the opposite direction. Laughing slightly at her own nerves, she called out to the phantom noise.
“Catch you later, Mr. Lonely Hermit of the Mines. Bye, rabid wolf. Sorry to be an inconv—”
The hand that clasped around her mouth tasted of stale sweat and earth.
Hilda slammed the mug of coffee beside her husband, who did nothing except fart a thanks back at her. Forty-seven years of marriage, she thought, and this is what you end up with. At least before he retired he was out from under her feet every day. At least she never had to watch trash like this back then.
“Isn’t there anything else on, Bert?” she ventured, knowing fully well what the answer would be. “That Dick Van-Dyke show you like is on the other side.”
Bert slurped his java.
“You never used to miss an episode of that.”
“Enough of the nagging,” Bert snapped. “I haven’t watched that show for years, and you know it. A load of old crap watched by old people in old people’s homes.”
Well, we could arrange to have you shipped to one so you could tune in, Hilda thought to herself, smiling at the wickedness of the idea.
“Now, we’re watching this, and that’s that.”
Hilda sighed in defeat as she poked around her chair for her knitting needles.
Her training kicked in as soon as the arms snaked around her. Sarah could hear her instructor even now: “If you choose to fight back, girls, you have to commit one hundred percent and be as fierce as possible. Believe in yourself and channel your fear into anger.” Fear was something she seemed to have with lashings to spare today, so channeling it should prove no problem. With a shout, she brought her heel down hard on the arch of her attacker’s foot, satisfied to hear his surprised grunt. Then her elbow came back, ploughing into his gut. The second she felt his grip loosen, she turned, grabbing his arm as she spun. His body crashed to the floor, where it lay still for a second before Sarah buried her toe in his groin. Okay, so that wasn’t particularly necessary, but god, did it feel good. Now if she’d remembered her instructor correctly, she should have been making for the hills about now, but the sight of her attacker made her pause.
“Jeez, lady,” he whined. “There was no need for that.”
“Wasn’t there?” she shot back angrily.
The lad couldn’t be more than eighteen. He’d obviously been down here for a few days. His hair was matted, and his skin was smeared with grime. Perhaps he’d fallen through the weak earth, too. Who knew? This wasn’t the time to find out, though. She was far too irate for that.
“Oh I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I thought you’d crept up behind me and shoved your greasy palm over my mouth. Now where I come from, that’s reason enough.”
The kid groaned as he began to lower his knees from his chest. Maybe she hadn’t needed to kick him that hard.
“I was just trying to shut you up, that’s all.”
“Shut me up? What the hell are you talking about? Why should you care if I shout the roof down? And what are you doing down here anyway, you little pervert?”
Again, that last comment was probably unnecessary. Who said he was a pervert? In the cold light from above, he looked normal enough, a little on the skinny side, but an average Joe for sure. Still, it had added the right effect. And there was nothing that said he wasn’t some kind of deviant, which meant a kick in the sacks was just desserts.
Carefully, he swung his legs around and got to his feet, slightly hunched from the dull thud that was no doubt throbbing through his nether regions.
“For the same reason as you, of course,” he spat. “Why would anyone be down here?”
“A good question!”
“And as for why I wanted to shut you up,” the boy replied, “I didn’t want you to alert them to our presence.”
Sarah shook her head in frustration and confusion. Could today get any worse? “They? Who are you talking about, kid?”
The boy’s lanky arm came up as his face fell. Slowly, not really wanting to see what was behind her, Sarah turned in the direction of his gesture.
“Them,” he intoned, pointed at the shuffling zombies that glared at them from the shadows.
No one knew what caused the outbreak. Some said it was radiation. Some said it was a crashed meteor affecting the earth. Some said it was the wrath of God. But whatever it was, the dead had decided that they’d spent enough time rotting in their graves and had clawed their way to the surface. At first, the wild stories of zombies had been dismissed as urban legends, but soon there were too many of them to belittle. In panic, the populace fled from the cities, leaving the manmade canyons to the undead. The ghouls squabbled over the flesh of those idiots who refused to leave their homes or shops, and the streets quite literally became a ghost town. Sarah remembered her elder brothers boasting that they had driven into town one day to play chicken with the zoms, but she knew they were full of bullshit. There was no way they’d go anywhere near the ghouls.
They’d have pissed their pants just thinking about it.
And as soon as it began, the crisis was over. Reports of new resurrections dwindled over time, and army helicopters had napalmed the infested cities. The President had said it was the only way, and they’d believed him. Even if they hadn’t, the bombs did the trick. The zoms were scorched from the face of the earth, and the dead stayed dead. It didn’t stop people from decapitating anyone who passed away, of course, but there was nothing wrong in playing it safe. Her brothers had tried to scare her by describing how Dad had sliced off Grandpa’s head with a shovel when a heart attack had finished the old soul. But they needn’t have bothered. She’d been terrified enough back then. They all were. But that was then, as the old saying went. In twenty years, there hadn’t been a single resurrection as far as she knew. Life had returned to normal. There were no more zombies.
“Shit.”
Sarah could have hoped for a more sophisticated comment to slip past her suddenly dry lips, but it was not to be. Stunned by what her own eyes were seeing, she tried again.
“Shit.”
Nope, all intelligent dialogue had left the building, leaving the basics of vocabulary behind. And could you blame her? No more zombies. The anchormen had promised, grim-faced but with an air of victory on the six o’clock news. Every reanimated corpse had been destroyed. People could return to the burnt husks of their homes and start again. The monsters weren’t coming back. Not this time.
“Shit.”
The glassy stare of zombie number one proved that they were liars. The maggots in the cheek of zombie number two screamed that the monsters had come back. The hungry groan that escaped from their ragged throats hinted that this wasn’t the time for starting anew. Instead, it was time for running, screaming, dying.
Never taking her eyes off the rotting duo, Sarah asked, “What’s your name, kid?”