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

  Her appetite was even starting to come back.

  THE END

  LADYKILLER

  By

  Ricki Thomas

  Ted arched his back, his spine complaining from the hours of weeding he’d just finished, and he surveyed the garden, the neat rows of marigolds lining the fence, the well pruned bushes and trees cleverly arranged to give a range of greens throughout the year. He smiled, proud of his work. But it wasn’t the beautifully landscaped scene that gave him such a sense of pride. It was his other job. As a ladykiller.

  Mindlessly plucking the dead leaves from his begonias, Ted thought back, a gentle smile appearing as he recalled the first girl, seven years before. Well, someone had to do it, rid the world of scum, it might as well be him. He’d been in his car, parked at the side of a winding country lane, eating a chicken sandwich, when he’d seen her. Oh, she was pretty, but he knew that beneath the long charcoal coat she had tied tightly, she had no clothes on, and that made her a prostitute. And prostitutes were filthy creatures, preying on men for their carnal pleasure.

  So he slunk down in his seat until he’d heard her pass, then quietly collected the wheel nut wrench from the boot of the car. With a stealth he could still muster, he ran up behind her, and smashed her over the head, manically heaving the tool on her until her body slumped, broken and bloody. Always taught by his mother not to leave a mess, he couldn’t just leave her there, so he’d carried her to his car and placed her in the boot, alongside the murderous tool.

  When the darkness fell and the lights in the neighbours’ houses died, he took the body and buried it securely in the garden, but not before removing her coat, and he was amazed to find she wasn’t naked after all: she was wearing a business suit. A tinge of guilt flooded over him, maybe she hadn’t been a prostitute after all. But with her safely in her grave, as he mused to himself with a whisky in the early hours, he knew he’d have to do it again. The sheer adrenaline rush had been so great, the feeling of empowerment, the cracking sound of the skull. It had given him too much pleasure not to continue in his newly found career.

  The first problem he came across reared its ugly head three months later when he couldn’t ignore the compulsion to kill anymore. Finding the girl. He’d been so lucky the first time, she had just appeared. But women walking alone weren’t easy to find in this day and age. He was going to have to select a target this time, choose who to live, and who to die.

  He’d heard through an article in the local newspaper about the prostitute problem in the centre of the nearest town. Apparently, although they plied their trade on the streets, kerb crawling was more of a problem, holding up the traffic, and lustful men propositioning innocent women who just happened to be in the area. He would have to be careful.

  His next target wasn’t as pretty as the first, but that didn’t matter really. She had a twisted expression, hardened by her trade, steely eyes and a mouth crinkled from too many years of smoking. He pulled the car into a lay-by and watched as she tried to solicit her goods. Unsuccessful in her attempts, Ted decided to get out and approach her, suggesting she get into the car. She refused, cautious of the dangers her job entailed, but with the promise of cigarettes, alcohol, and a hefty payment thrust into her waiting hand, she reluctantly agreed after some coaxing.

  Ted was aware that his demeanour was gentle, an aging, small man with grey hair and glasses for his myopic eyes, and he concocted a dramatic story about losing the wife he’d never had years before, now needing to seek his pleasure elsewhere. His tale took the entire journey to relate, and by the time he had reached his tiny village, she’d become comfortable in his presence. He’d stopped on the way to buy the cigarettes, and she was happy to stay in the car, which gave him relief.

  As soon as he’d led her into the kitchen through the back door she started to remove her clothes, and he halted her. After all, it wasn’t sex he was after. He suggested they shared a whisky, that she had a couple of cigarettes, and afterwards he would let her lie on the bed and give her a calming back massage. She thought she’d died and gone to heaven, how lucky was she to find a generous and caring punter. But very soon she did die. And heaven became a small plot next to the first victim in his prized garden.

  Ted gained so much pleasure from both of the killings, he adored the sound of the flesh splitting, of the muted cries as he extinguished their lives, of the only power he had ever managed to wield after growing up, an only child, with his oppressive mother. So it became a pattern. Every few months when the desire overwhelmed him, he would select his victim, entice her back to his house with his amiable manner, and make her pay with her life for her sordid career. Luckily the garden was big enough to withstand so many graves.

  A voice brought Ted back to the present, and he turned to see his neighbour by the fence. “Bob, hello.”

  Bob laughed, he rarely spoke to Ted, but when they did interact it was always with pleasantness. “I see you’ve been gardening again.” Ted was standing beside the latest grave he had prepared for his next victim. “Is it more roses you’re planting?”

  Ted nodded, his hands expressive. “Yes, another English Rose. I shall be going out soon to get a few more.”

  Bob chuckled once more. “So many rose bushes, you must have at least twenty blocks of them.”

  “Yes, I think they’re befitting of such a pretty, well fertilised garden, don’t you?”

  He didn’t know why, maybe it was because she was there, or maybe it was because he fancied something new, but the next victim Ted selected was just a girl. Maybe around the age of ten. She seemed vulnerable, there was a sadness in her eyes, not because she was unhappy, just an underlying torment that he soon came to understand was due to the loss of her mother at the age of three, which she informed him of in the car when he was bringing her back to his bungalow. She’d been easy to lure, a promise of sweets, some pocket money, and maybe a McDonalds later, in return for her company. She was to be the first victim he’d ever asked the name of, and she happily introduced herself as Maisie.

  He revelled in her innocence, the bright blue eyes and trusting nature, and such a pretty little face, and he even contemplated letting her go at one stage. But the burning desire to rip her apart won the battle, and now he had her in his lounge, waiting for her sweets and fizzy drink. He had no need to have her facing the other way, even though he was in his sixties now, and even though he was a short man, he knew it would be easy to overpower her. He laid the tray, laden with chocolate and cans of pop, on the coffee table, and she dived in greedily.

  With her attention purely on selecting which goodies she should start with, he grabbed the poker and came at her, cracking it around the right side of her head. The questioning eyes as she took the beating almost broke his heart, but he was too far into the excitement now to stop, and gradually her body faltered and she was limp. He’d give it a couple of hours into the dead of night, when witnesses would be unlikely, and let her join the others outside.

  The noise was horrendous, deathly moaning, groans from the grave, and at first Ted thought he may be having a nightmare, but as his eyes slowly opened, adjusting to the soft light in the room, he could hear that the bad dream was real.

  A quick glance at the girl’s body on the floor reminded him of the previous day, or was it still the same day? But this had never happened before. The wailing, the crying, the guttural sounds. He jumped up from the sofa, as fast as his aging body would allow, and checked the young girl’s pulse. She was definitely dead. So the television was next on his list, switching it off hastily in case the racket was some kind of interference with the signal, but still the gruesome clattering continued. He had to find out where it was coming from.

  Opening the door to the kitchen, Ted took a step back, his eyes filled with horror, mouth agape, fear shaking his body. More than twenty women were in his kitchen, but they were horrendous. Eyes missing, heads crushed, clothes rotting, teeth brown, hair thinning and unkempt. He felt a pain in his chest, down his
arm, and a terror he’d never experienced before. But still he didn’t know what to do.

  He backed away, trying to close the door, but the multitude of bodies compared to his fragile fighting was hopeless, and they soon all staggered into the room to join him as he edged further away. He had no idea why, but he lifted Maisie’s little dead body, slightly stiffened with the onset of rigour mortis, and held her in front of him as a worthless shield, and suddenly one of the zombies lunged at him, fleshless fingers clawing at him, faceless teeth grinding, soundless screams echoing, and soon the others had joined the assault.

  He was terrified now, aware that they wanted to kill him, a poor, defenceless old man, a man who had done nothing wrong, leading a peaceful life, tending his flowers, passing the time of day with the villagers. The pain in his chest grew; a clenching, gnawing, relentless torture that threatened to take him before the creatures attacking him did. He could feel his hair being dragged out, his arms being bitten, skinless mouths tasting his flesh. It seemed to go on for a lifetime, his death, and eventually it was there, his body slumped on the floor, a death mask of sheer agony, fright, and panic.

  The most vicious of the zombies smiled a lifeless grin, her revenge now complete with the help of the spirits she’d shared her grave with. She dusted the mud from her rotting business suit, bending down to scoop Maisie from the floor, tenderly stroking the curly hair from her eyes. She kissed her, and Maisie returned, glad to finally be back in her mother’s arms.

  THE END

  DADDY DEAREST

  By

  Dave Jeffery

  Daddy was mean. Not in the fiscal sense like keeping his money secure behind the impregnable doors of a city bank. He was mean in the way he fetched bright blood with his small hard knuckles, or the manner in which he’d laugh when tears cut tracks through the gore on his kid’s faces.

  Our faces.

  Lindsey and me.

  Lindsey is twenty three now, a woman with yellow hair and a slightly crooked smile. But I’ll always remember her as a gangly thing with freckles and a sense of mischief. Even with all the beatings Daddy Dearest doled out. Gangly, yes. But weak? It was never a word I could associate with my sister. Even when she lay on her bed, bloodied and bruised as Mickey Mouse peered down from the walls, that grin saying more than those black, black eyes. Daddy’s birthday gift for her tenth birthday was three fractured ribs. Yes, he put tears on her cheeks and bruised her pale freckled skin; but he never took the light from her eyes.

  Lindsey.

  My Lindsey.

  Never ceasing to amaze, to rise above the adversity of parental abuse. Taking the blows that had my name on them, giving me comfort in the dark as Daddy Dearest slept off another bottle of Ol’ Jack, his thundering snores hiding my sobs and Lindsey’s soft ‘shushes’ as she stroked my battered body.

  Never ceasing to amaze.

  Until the day came when she had the opportunity to leave and said ‘no’. Me, of course, that was the reason. She was my protector, my champion. I was her dependent, a ten year old, under weight boy who flinched when a chair scraped the floor boards or a car horn sounded in the street. A boy who still pissed the sheets when he heard the dull thud of a whiskey bottle hitting the rug and the click of his bedroom door as it slowly opened wide, allowing the demon that was Daddy loose in the room.

  She’d said ‘no’ and remained my armour, and I swore that as I grew older, stronger I would take the baton and protect her as she’d protected me. But the opportunity never came. Ol’ Jack turned Daddy old before his time, made him decrepit and impotent and in this Lindsey, amazing Lindsey, dumfounded as she usually did by giving up any hope of college to support Daddy in his long suffering journey. I suspected pleasure in her actions, retribution. I told her my thoughts once. And she’d slowly shaken her head.

  “I’m not looking after the man who beat on us, John,” she’d said. “I’m looking after the man before Momma died. The kind and gentle man who loved his family.”

  A man I didn’t know.

  Mother had died before I could walk. She was a shadow in my mind, given form in the pictures hidden in the cellar for a lifetime, until Lindsey rescued them and placed them on the dresser in her room. Initially Daddy Dearest was too consumed with his grief to allow it. Then he became too consumed by Ol’ Jack to care. For him it was medicine. For me it was just an excuse to camouflage the meanness.

  When I heard he was sick at his own hands it pleased me. No one, it seemed, was immune to Daddy’s abuse. Over the years he’d even managed to fuck up his own body as well as ours. The night Lindsey called and told me that she thought Daddy was dying part of me screamed out with joy. But another part, the part still wearing the bruises and the fear and the guilt, began whimpering like a hungry, mangy cur searching for scraps.

  We had occasional respite. How else could we have come through it so well adjusted? The one day a year ensuring we didn't allow history to repeat in all its medieval glory: Father's Day. 24 hours where the beatings and the bullying ceased as Daddy Dearest spent the morning post-oiled and coiled in duck and down, and the afternoon reclined in his old squeaking chesterfield, the man who would be king, allowing us to serve him ribs and fries, a root beer or two. And then there was the cake. Lindsey's handiwork, of course. A square slab of fruitcake, coated in white icing and adorned with a single candle and the words "Happy Father's Day". It came with pride and misplaced love, but it meant there would be no fresh cuts that day.

  One day a year and Jesus fucking Christ how we all revelled in it. Not even Ol' Jack could turn Daddy Dearest sour. But the bile would always return. And the blood. Constantly, consistently. Just like Father's Day.

  I expected Lindsey’s call, it was Father's Day after all, that hollow holiday for daddies everywhere, acknowledgement of their contributions to family holism. If my stomach wasn't so empty I would probably puke. I usually leave Lindsey to bake the cake and nurse the monster.

  So, yes, I expected the call. But not the content.

  "You need to come, John,” her soft voice said through the grilled plastic of the receiver. “He’s really sick.”

  “The guy has always been sick.” I toyed with the Zippo in the pocket of my jeans and wondered if I’d used all my smokes.

  “Funny guy,” she said, the static not disguising her sarcasm. “You know what I mean.”

  I knew she was sitting in Daddy Dearest's old Chesterfield, just as I knew that on a small walnut table scarred with silver half moon coffee-cup stains and butt end scorches there would be that motherfucking cake, with its armour plate icing and lone candle. It was a ritual. A harking to the too few good times.

  “Yeah.” I rubbed at my brow and closed my eyes. I was fighting against the effects of half a bottle of Ol’ Jack. The legacy of Daddy Dearest, his one and only lasting gift: dependency on a bottle. “We knew it was happening, Lindsey. The quacks told us as much last month.”

  “This isn’t cirrhosis, John,” Lindsey said. Her voice was hushed, almost conspiratorial. “I’m talking about The Sickness.”

  The world did a jig, and I grabbed at the wall, disorientated by the booze and the shock of her words.

  “You got to get the hell out of there, sis,” I said. “Just get gone and don’t look back.”

  “But what if I'm wrong?”

  “Then you’re wrong.”

  “I can’t, John.” The voice was non negotiable, the kind of voice she’d used when the offer of college came through several years ago.

  “You owe that shit nothing, Linz,” I said sourly. “He's lucky you’re still there for him.”

  “That’s as maybe,” she said through the fizz. "But you know why I stayed. I made my bed.”

  “You don’t have to die in it,” I said quickly. “You know how this thing works. You know what The Sickness does.”

  She knew. We all did. But no one knew why it happened or how to stop it. The Sickness came and went. But it always stayed a while. And when it did it played merry and it p
layed hard; victims floored with a fever and then the bone quaking agony of multiple convulsions until they died, clawing at their throats as though attempting to rip it open and allow in precious oxygen.

  Then the real problems began.

  When those who had succumbed to The Sickness came back from the dead.

  I could remember the first time it had happened. Hell, I was there now, my mind swirling back in time; no longer in the hall of my cramped apartment, but in a rail car; hand clamped to a smart phone watching the news, watching a small town on a small screen, cordoned off by a fleet of green military vehicles. Then shaky footage, the news crew letting the cameras roll; capturing the terrible yet incredible events and sending them out to the world.

  “As you can see,” the news reporter said off camera, “it’s quite incomprehensible, but the dead are walking, ladies and gentlemen, the dead are walking!”

  The screen filled with shuffling shapes, they came from homes, from stores, from vehicles scattered about the streets. These things were once human, but no longer. They were broken and malformed, each emitting a low pitiful mewling sound that combined to make an eerie sound track that drifted ominously from the speaker in the smart phone.

  “The medical teams are going in, ladies and gentlemen,” the commentator continued. “Oh, thank the good Lord! The doctors are attempting to deliver any aid they can to these poor, unfortunate souls.”

  On screen, medics moved amongst the military; white coats amid a sea of green fatigues. Tentatively the medical team approached the shambling throng of people heading towards the cordon.

  I’m aware of people around me, other passengers peering at the screen, united in their fascination and, if they were totally honest, their revulsion of the scene on the screen.

  And this was before the screams began.