Holiday of the Dead

by David Dunwoody; Wayne Simmons; Remy Porter; Thomas Emson; Rod Glenn; Shaun Jeffrey; John Russo; Tony Burgess; A P Fuchs; Bowie V Ibarra

  Then, he vanished, torn from sight by unseen hands. And the screaming started, shrill agony beyond hope of saving or healing.

  ‘Holy shit,’ yelled Louis. He jumped onto the sandbags, looking over the shotgun barrel. He pulled the trigger and worked the slide, but he was dragged outside as well, and joined in the chorus of screams.

  Then they came through the doorway. Shambling corpses, stinking of the grave and the floodwater, with ravenous hunger in their hollow eyes.

  Although the hurricane had passed the city by, the storm surge from Lake Pontchartrain had overwhelmed the inadequate levees, causing enormous flooding. Some areas were completely under water and, at that moment, householders were trapped in attics and resorting to hacking their way through roofs with axes and hammers. If they had known what was on the outside, they would have preferred to risk drowning.

  The floodwater had reached the French Quarter, including the cemeteries of St Louis. The waters had flooded through the stone and brick tombs, loosening masonry and slabs, floating corpses and coffins. Unseen by living eyes, a skeletal form had crawled from an unmarked tomb, loosened from its rope-like bindings, clawing through soaking rotted wood, pushing through brickwork aged by time and soaked by water. It had slithered through water, mud and the fetid remains of other corpses. As it touched them, they too began to writhe. Possessed by blood hunger, they staggered onto their rotting limbs, and shambled off in search of sustenance.

  The walking dead fell upon the living with ravenous hunger, tearing throats and jaw-bones, closing vicelike on fleshy arms and legs, gulping down blood. They grew in numbers as the slain found themselves dragged back to the realm of the living, driven by agonising hunger.

  Michael watched Blind Willie as he slumped on his bar stool. ‘He’s out.’

  ‘What can we do?’ yelled Michael. Behind him, patrons were fighting with the undead. The occasional crack of a gunshot drowned out the meaty smacks of cleavers, knives and pool cues, as well as the throaty gurgle of fallen victims.

  ‘Nuthin’ much we can do.’ Willie pulled out a silver derringer and raised it to his head.

  ‘Wait!’ Michael grabbed his arm, jerking it. The pistol shot echoed around the bar-room but no-one looked up. ‘There must be something we can do!’

  ‘That was my only bullet, shit-head.’ Willie threw down the gun. ‘I’ve no goddamned choice now.’

  Michael looked behind him. The living patrons were in a deadlock with the shambling corpses in the doorway.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of this place! Grab onto me!’

  Michael grabbed a bar-stool as a battering-ram and entered the fray, Willie clutching the back of his belt. He pushed with all his effort, forcing the corpses back. One of them, a slough-faced skull with empty eye-sockets, swung at him with its crab-clawed talons, but he dodged easily and the blow passed by his face, leaving only the fetid stench of decay in its wake. They were slow creatures. He thrust the stool forward, momentum with him, but his feet slipped on the slimy floor. He didn’t want to look down and see, or smell, the mess of blood and putrescent slime beneath him. But hands grabbed his back, and forced him forward as others joined in behind him. They pushed the corpses backwards through the door, and spilled out onto the street.

  ‘Get to the cemetery,’ hissed Willie, in his ear. ‘The whip. The bone whip. It might be there.’

  They ducked round the corner, into an alleyway, and Michael pulled out the map he had torn out of the guidebook. The St Louis cemetery wasn’t far, just three blocks away. The trouble was that he was knee-deep in floodwater, surrounded by the living dead which were intent on tearing the flesh from every last living person, until they too rose as walking corpses. And he had to escort a blind man, although Willie held the handle of his cane in a menacing grasp.

  The walking dead seemed to be intent on attacking the largest groups of the living, including the former patrons of the Rising Sun, who had run into more of the creatures in the main street. Michael slipped past them, leading Willie, ignoring the complaining shouts. ‘Chicken-shit motherfucker,’ they called in his wake. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw one of the patrons hack the maggot-ridden arm off a corpse with a cleaver, before he was dragged down by two others. The creatures bit into his face and throat, which disappeared in a red spray.

  They splashed up Dumaine Street, towards the Louis Armstrong Park. The fetid oil-slicked water soaked their legs, and Michael dodged floating branches, toys, drink cartons, polystyrene boxes and other debris. A scum-covered body floated past, and he gave it a wide berth. It did not move as it glided past serenely, face-up, but something snagged his ankle and he screamed. Another body had slid past behind him, face-down in the water, arms trailing in its wake.

  The elegant buildings, arches and trees of the park were all lapped by water, but deserted of living or dead humans. Flames lapped in the distance, reflected on the underside of dark gray clouds. Michael was not sure if it was day or night. Most of the noise and activity seemed to be to the south, near the Superdome and Warehouse District. He checked his map.

  The cemetery was next to a deserted red-brick housing project, and south of the raised St Claiborne Avenue Expressway. Bedraggled refugees trudged wearily southwards along this, presumably towards the Superdome, escorted by National Guardsmen. The cemetery gates were wide open and Michael passed between the white stone pillars, leading Willie into the twisting avenues of the raised memorials and tombs.

  ‘I don’t know where to start, Willie,’ said Michael. ‘It’s all under water.’

  The blind man sighed. ‘It’s halfway down Alley Number Two. Name of Louviere. Most of the tombs are brick and stucco.’

  ‘I think we’re in Center Alley,’ said Michael, squinting at the map. Ahead was a meandering path through the looming monoliths. ‘Alley Number Two is one of these offshoots.’ Willie splashed after him, and they paused as Michael looked nervously at the dark passage to his left, overshadowed by the tombs, in darkness because of the power cuts. He took a deep breath and turned down the alley.

  Michael placed one foot gently after the other, frightened of stumbling and being pounced upon by the undead. Hairs crackled on the back of the neck as he edged past the cracked-open vaults and tombs, which stared menacingly at him like eye-sockets in a row of skulls. He tried not to gag on the sweetly-fetid air which wafted from the abandoned sepulchres. Willie breathed heavily behind him, muttering what sounded like prayers to some distant god.

  ‘Believe we’re passing the Glaipon tomb,’ mumbled Willie. ‘That’s the one where the voodoo queen is supposed to be buried.’

  Michael squinted at the vault on his left, broken open like the others. It was hard to make anything out in the darkness, but he could sense nothing in the inky-black void.

  ‘Louviere tomb is round this corner,’ mumbled Willie. ‘I can feel it, as well. In my bones.’ He laughed morbidly.

  And there it stood, at the end of the dead-end labyrinth, stained stucco mostly fallen away from the structure like scabrous skin peeling from a corpse.

  Michael inched forward, shining the light on his mobile phone around the inside of the broken tomb. The blue-white glare picked out scuttling spiders and ancient cobwebs, broken stones and stones jutting through the floodwater like teeth. But there was no whip.

  ‘Do I need to go in and look?’ Michael was shaking with fear, close to tears. ‘Do I have to? I will if I need to, but I’m fucking terrified!’

  The tomb entrance radiated fear, an obscene black hole sucking in all other emotions other than terror.

  ‘Go on and look, son. I’m here behind you.’ Willie’s flat voice didn’t inspire confidence.

  Michael edged forward, his body shuddering, hairs up at razor-sharp angles.

  ‘Do I have to put my hand in it?’ He was crying now, unashamed of his terror.

  ‘Only if you kick something with your foot.’

  Michael swung his leg around, swishing the water into waves, avoiding the stones
which stuck out of the water, and leaning back as far as possible.

  Clunk.

  Something connected with his foot, in a dull thud.

  He bent forward, every sinew of his body poised for flight. He plunged his hand into the water and pulled something out.

  It was a human backbone, stripped of ribs.

  ‘Got it! I’ve fucking got it!’

  Willie sighed. ‘That ain’t it. That’s some poor other dead soul’s backbone.’

  Michael slouched out of the tomb, drained of all emotion, filled with numbing despair.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  ‘Only thing I can think of is to see Marie Lavieu.’

  ‘The Voodoo Queen? But we passed by there earlier?’ Michael shrugged. ‘Why didn’t we check there first?’

  ‘You ain’t been listening. She ain’t there. She lives downtown, a couple of blocks away.’

  Michael kept to the shadows, which was most of the side-streets, other than the light cast by flames and distant searchlights. Willie stumbled after him, tired by the effort of carefully placing his feet in the floodwater, and soaked to the bone.

  ‘Think it’s next one on the right,’ said Willie. ‘Difficult to tell, though, shufflin’ along like this. She always said it was a light pink colour.’

  ‘Is she really the Voodoo Queen?’

  ‘I don’t know, and nobody does, other than her. She was born and grew up like anyone else. I knew her as a babe in arms. But she had power, even then, or so they said. A soul doesn’t need to die when the body does, if you know the rituals.’

  They passed an intersection and Michael glanced down to fire-lit Bourbon Street. A shape crouched over something, tearing and gnawing. Michael looked away just as he realised what it was, bile flooding his gullet. He bent double, retching into the flooded street.

  A hand clasped his shoulder. ‘I can hear it,’ said Willie. ‘We gotta be strong.’

  Ahead, on the corner to the right, was a pink-stuccoed mansion, white pillars and facings. Michael stopped. ‘Is it a big place, on the corner?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Willie.

  ‘We’re here then.’

  They crunched up the glass covered steps, shards glinting like diamonds in the firelight. The door had been kicked open.

  ‘Doesn’t look good,’ said Michael.

  ‘I think she’s here,’ hissed Willie. ‘I can feel her.’

  The wooden floorboards were strewn with broken and shattered furniture. Ahead, at the top of a grand staircase, was what looked like a barricade assembled from tables and chairs.

  Michael crept towards the staircase. He wished he had a weapon of some kind, but knew they would be useless. Ahead, at the top of the stairs, loomed a shadowed bulk, stepping carefully through the obstacles.

  ‘It’s her!’ Willie grinned in relief.

  The shape stumbled and fell, crashing down the steps onto the two men, crushing them with its bulk.

  Michael caught a glimpse of burning red eyes in the bloated face, contorted into a hate-consumed mask. He writhed frantically to escape, slithering under the blood-soaked folds of flesh.

  Willie moaned weakly for a few seconds, until the teeth found his throat.

  Michael wriggled free just as hot fluid splashed his skin from a spurting artery. He stumbled away, glancing back at the hulking shape which tore and gnawed at the dying man on the ground.

  At the Superdome, all hell had broken loose. The evacuation plan had been thrown into chaos. Hordes of decaying and more recent corpses were throwing themselves against the fortress-like structure. The National Guard had flown in sharpshooters and machine-gunners, who were setting up on the roof and upper levels. The bullets thudded into the dead, and they fell in great numbers, but still they came on. Even worse, they were at the rear of the living survivors who were struggling to get into the shelter of the Superdome under helicopter floodlights. They tore into the living even as bullets tore into them and, when they fell, fresh corpses clawed themselves upright to take their places.

  A sniper team on the roof covered the northeast, along the axis of the expressway. The spotter saw movement through his binoculars, a kilometre distant.

  ‘Target two-o-clock, seven-fifty metres.’

  The marksman shuffled on his foam mat and looked through the sight of his fifty-calibre rifle.

  ‘You reckon that’s a zombie motherfucker?’

  ‘Can’t quite see what it is. It’s shuffling along, covered head to toe in filth.’

  ‘I can’t see much either, just got a figure in my sight.’

  ‘Put it down. Looks like a corpse to me.’

  The rifle cracked, the massive bolt sliding backwards, catching open on an empty chamber. The distant figure crumpled as the gunshot’s echo faded.

  ‘Need a fresh magazine.’

  ‘Okay. Here you go.’

  The magazine clicked as it slid into place. ‘This sucks. Take me back to Baghdad right now.’

  ‘Reckon we’ll be out of here in a few hours. This place won’t last long. There’s too many of the motherfuckers, and they just won’t stay dead.’

  The command centre was half empty. Only those with ‘need to know’ clearance were allowed to join the President of the United States as he viewed the real-time video footage.

  ‘Heck of a mess, isn’t it Brownie?’

  ‘Yes Sir. Maybe a hundred thousand were holed up in the city, twenty thousand of them in the Superdome. They’re all walking corpses now.’

  The President turned to his Secretary of Defence. ‘What can we do, Donny?’

  ‘Nuke ’em?’ The bespectacled man laughed. ‘Only joking. We’ve got thermobaric bombs; that’s the best bet. Vaporise those sons of bitches in the streets, and burn anything that’s left.’

  ‘It needs to be kept top secret with a cordon around the place and the media kept at bay, at all costs.’ The President rubbed his chin. ‘We can blame it on Al Qaeda. Or maybe not, gas explosions might be better.’

  ‘We need to get one or two of those waking dead creatures alive though.’ The President smiled. ‘Oh dear, or whatever they are, alive or dead. Dead or alive, even.’ He laughed.

  A uniformed man spoke up. ‘Mister President, we’ve sent out recon patrols. They’re still out there, searching block by block for any artefacts or isolated corpses. The creatures are throwing themselves at the Superdome for the time being. We’ve got another twelve hours or so before they overwhelm the place and we have to burn it.’

  ‘Keep ‘em at it. There must be something causing this.’ The President munched on a pretzel. ‘Whatever it is we could really use those in the War on Terror, in Afghanistan, in Iraq.’

  He looked at the chaos on the screens, arms thrust in his suit jacket pockets. ‘Just think what they could do …’

  THE END

  ROCKETS’ RED GLARE

  By

  Bowie V Ibarra

  Calavera City, Texas

  Reloj Co.

  “Little faggots popping fireworks for the Fourth of July tonight?”

  Trevor and Todd’s sole purpose was to drink beer and make people feel miserable at Calavera City Community College. The five people they rolled up on were some of their favourite targets, both in and out of school.

  “Don’t you guys have a douchebag meeting tonight or something?”

  Geoff was always the first to respond of the five friends. He gave a high-five to his two buddies, Bruce and Lawrence, who were standing next to him when he uttered the response. They immediately began laughing. The laughter was just another way to get under Trevor and Todd’s skin.

  “You’re just jealous because we can afford them, asshole,” said Belinda, joining the boys with a barb of her own. Heather, who was standing by Belinda, laughed along with the boys. She knuckle-bumped Belinda.

  “You’re the only girl I know, Belinda,” said Todd, “that would settle for a little queer boyfriend like Bruce who doesn’t even have a car.”

  “I’
ll take personality over having a car any day, asshole,” she said, flipping him the middle finger.

  “Why don’t we just go inside your house?” said Todd, indicating her home. “You can see how big my personality is.”

  “Fuck off,” she replied as Trevor and Todd chuckled.

  Two 5-tonne Army trucks pulled up behind Trevor’s Mustang GT. The bright lights of the first vehicle cut through the early evening. The driver honked.

  With the arrogance of a true jerk, Trevor took a long and defiant swig of beer, before saying, “When you girls want to hang out with some real men, call us.” He revved the engine before peeling out in front of the group of friends. The white smoke of burnt rubber filled the air as the car shrieked like a Detroit-born banshee then sped away. With a grumbling clamour, the trucks drove on.

  “I should’ve tossed a bottle-rocket in their car,” said Bruce.

  “That would’ve been hilarious,” said Heather.

  “Speaking of,” said Lawrence, “let’s send another salvo.” He handed four bottle-rockets to his friends and they immediately placed them in their bottles on the sidewalk.

  “Try and delay the lighting,” suggested Belinda. “Let’s see if we can get them to pop in one-second intervals.”

  “Hey babe, this isn’t the fireworks at the Tower of the Americas in San Antonio, now,” chuckled Bruce.

  “Just do it. Ready?”

  The friends had their punks lit and ready. “Go.”

  They each waited for the person beside them to light their fuse before they lit theirs. As the last of the five friends lit theirs, the first rocket went off. Then the second, third, fourth, and finally the fifth rocket took flight. Like Belinda had planned, they whistled into the sky in a crude, yet coordinated, salvo. They burst in the sky in intervals, and the friends cheered.

  “Respect the soldiers,” a voice behind them said. The friends turned around. They knew who it was. It was Mr. Fuentes, who had rolled up on his bike. Or, as students at Calavera City Community College knew him, he was Pete the Nutty Professor. “Respect the soldiers on the Fourth of July. They are with God now. They died so you could live here in freedom.”