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

  “What’s that?” Eric took a sip of his drink. Warmth spread through his belly, and he sighed. Better to come down a little from the chaos outside before he saw Liv.

  “I mean I’ve been watching TV all night and morning,” said Anselmo. “She doesn’t care to see it. But I can barely look away. Saw footage of them staggering through Times Square, all stiff-legged and white. Some of them had awful wounds. Mortal wounds. But they just keep going. Anyhow, she wouldn’t come out of her room so I shut it off.” Anselmo drained his glass. “You’re a professor of what, again?”

  “Astronomy,” Eric answered, knowing damn well that Anselmo knew it.

  The other man nodded and clinked the ice in his glass. “My, looks like I need a refill already.” He got up and walked back behind the counter. “So where do you think it came from, Professor? The stars, maybe?”

  Eric ignored the jibe and said, “More likely our own people made it. I’m sure they didn’t intend this, but …” He took another drink and decided to humour the winemaker, wax poetic a little. “Everything outside this world is Creation yet unfolding. We seem to search for the means to undo it.”

  “Hmm.” Anselmo returned to the table. “Never known a stargazer to be so cynical. Not like Liv. But she’s young yet.” He tilted back his glass and swallowed down its contents. Anselmo’s face flushed. He set the glass on the table with a bang. Eric jumped in his seat.

  Anselmo’s wet eyes narrowed. Eric realized the man had been drinking long before he got there. Anselmo’s hands curled into beefy fists, and he said softly, “She was your student. Do you really think you’re better than me?”

  Eric stared at him, searching for words, for some sort of exit strategy. His back was against the windows. Anselmo was between him and the front hall. The winemaker had a peculiar smile on his face, and it wasn’t the one he wore to parties. The revolver sat on the table in front of Eric … they both looked at it, and Eric’s stomach turned. His hands twitched in his lap. What did this maniac want him to do?

  The lilies’ petals moved ever so gently. Anselmo frowned, and his hands relaxed upon the table. “Do you feel a draft?”

  He barked into the front hall. “Sal! Check on Olivia!”

  Eric’s hand took the .38 from the table and stuffed it into his pants pocket. He barely noticed. His heart was pounding again, and he was rising, willing his legs not to break into a run as he went into the front hall. Anselmo followed after him. There, they heard Salvatore’s cry.

  Anselmo raced ahead of Eric, down the hall and into the rear of the house, through the last doorway. He stopped beside Salvatore, both of them looking at something in the room; Eric broke through the pair and let out a strangled yell.

  It had been a month since he last saw her. They’d run into each other in the city – he couldn’t remember where just now, couldn’t remember anything but the way she had looked, and how kind she had been, and how it had stirred him just to make her laugh again. Now she was pale and lifeless on the floor beneath an open window. Raindrops pattered on the carpet and drew tears on her face. She was wearing no makeup, and her dark brown hair was damp and matted to her brow and neck and shoulders. She wore a thin dress with a floral print. She was beautiful.

  (She’s dead)

  Eric vomited on his shoes.

  Salvatore pulled him back as Anselmo knelt beside the body. “Why are you – let me go!” Eric shook Salvatore off and fell beside Anselmo. Liv’s eyes were closed, lips parted slightly. She smelled like the rain. Eric’s stomach heaved again, and he let Salvatore draw him back.

  Anselmo rose and went to the window. He caught the fluttering curtains in his hands and ripped them away, looking out and down the hillside. “They got in,” he said quietly.

  “You see them?” Salvatore asked.

  “No.” Anselmo looked down at Liv. “I see her.”

  He touched her face and neck. “No bite. Just choked the life out of her.” Anselmo’s fist pressed into his teeth.

  Salvatore released Eric and went to shut the window. Eric and Anselmo stood on either side of the body. Eric didn’t know how to feel. He wanted to rage, to sob, but she had not been his in the moment of her death. It was Anselmo who needed to break the silence. But he didn’t.

  “She called me three hours ago,” Eric breathed. “She was alive.” His eyes lit upon the phone beside the four-poster bed, and he went to it. When he touched the receiver to his ear, a hollow clicking filled his head.

  “Phone’s been out for an hour or so,” Anselmo muttered.

  Eric sat on the bed.

  “It must have tried to drag her out the window,” Anselmo said.

  “Don’t.”

  “She couldn’t scream …”

  “Don’t. Just stop. Please.”

  “Search the grounds,” Anselmo told Salvatore. He tugged on the bed sheet under Eric. “Stand up.”

  Eric numbly complied, and Anselmo covered the body. Then he sat at the foot of the bed.

  Eric had seen so few vehicles out on the highway. People were staying home, where they felt safe. He had come here – not because of the remoteness of the villa, nor the great stone walls that surrounded it – but because of her. She’d always made him feel safe. And she’d known that.

  “She still loved me,” he breathed.

  Eric realized what he’d said aloud and looked up with a start. Anselmo was gone. There was only the body. He went to her and stood over the bed sheet. He knelt, one last time, and pulled the cover back to see her. He studied the lashes of her eyes, the curve of her jaw, her slightly opened mouth. He smelled lavender. She often bathed in lavender-scented water. He knelt closer, sniffing at her mouth.

  He turned her head ever so gently to the side and watched as water trickled from her lips.

  “She still loved you,” Anselmo said.

  He was in the doorway. Eric stood. He felt the weight of the gun in his pocket, against his thigh. But he only said, “Why?”

  Something struck the window, rattling it in its frame. Eric spun to see an amorphous silhouette moving behind the curtains. The pane rattled again. Thunder sounded. Glass exploded into the room, and a pair of mottled gray hands tore through the curtains like they were wet paper.

  “They did get in,” Anselmo mumbled.

  Eric barrelled into the winemaker, sending him tumbling head over heels into the hallway. Eric clambered over him and raced into the front hall, where his shoulder connected with Salvatore’s chest with such force it threw the young man into the wall. Eric slipped, righted himself, and plunged through the door into the courtyard. Through the rain, past the stone maiden, through the outer door – Eric came at last to a halt and stared into the vineyard. It seemed to be alive, moving with the rhythm of the falling rain. He looked from row to row. There could be dead men lurking in any one of them, waiting to pounce on him as he ran for the gate. Then he remembered the gun, and shoved his hand into his pocket – found nothing.

  Where had he lost it? The hall? The courtyard? Eric looked back at the villa and saw Salvatore taking aim. The sky roared. A rifle round whizzed past his head.

  Eric broke right, down the hillside. He heard yelling. Anselmo, giving orders. The man was a coward. He must have killed her in a rage. Now Anselmo was back in control, clear-headed, and he wouldn’t dirty his hands again. Eric ran around the side of an enormous barn and skidded through a slick of mud. He banged against the barn wall and splashed down. Filthy water entered his mouth and eyes. Anselmo had drowned her in the bath. She’d been utterly exposed, completely helpless. She’d trusted him. Eric’s blood ran hot.

  “Come out!” Salvatore shouted.

  Eric sat up and pressed his back to the wall. “He murdered her!” he shouted. There was no response. “A girl! A poor girl!” Eric cried. His voice broke. Then the response came, but it wasn’t Salvatore.

  “You know how she was!” Anselmo called. Eric couldn’t tell which side of the barn the man was on. The rain was coming down in sheets, and
he could barely hear the winemaker above the din. “She told me she called you – we’d never discussed it – she gave me that look, you know the one. Witch!

  “Then I had her in the water. Under the water. There was no going back then, Professor! I must have been as scared as she was, believe me. But it was HER OWN GODDAMN FAULT!” Anselmo was slurring heavily, and the occasional stutter in his voice told Eric the man was stumbling closer. But he still didn’t know from which side! And Salvatore might be advancing silently from the other. Eric saw the stone wall through a line of olive trees. He could try and climb it. No. It was soaked and so was he. He’d take a bullet in the back. Better to face the bastard head-on.

  Someone rounded the corner at his left. It was Salvatore, but his rifle dragged in the mud at his side, and through the downpour Eric saw blood pumping from a ragged wound in his neck, gushing through his fingers. Eric watched in horror as the brimming blood was washed away by the rain, only to instantly return. Salvatore sagged to the ground, and the rifle fell before him.

  Eric stepped forward to reach for it. A dead man appeared at the corner. Eric dove for the gun.

  The dead man jerked back as a bullet punched through his ribs. Eric had only just caught up the rifle; Anselmo was behind him, with the .38, and he knew the bullet had been meant for his back.

  It happened quickly. Eric rose. The rifle kicked in his hands. Anselmo fell with a scream.

  Eric staggered away, toward the wall, away from both Anselmo and the walking corpse. The dead man looked from him to Anselmo. His eyes met with those of the latter, the wounded one. Anselmo rolled onto his bloody stomach and clawed at the earth. “NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

  He didn’t make it so much as a foot before the man fell upon him. He screamed like a child as he died.

  Standing beside the wall and the olive trees, Eric had a clear view of the other corpses shambling down the hillside. They came around the barn on both sides, falling on their knees over Anselmo and his cousin. But a few pushed past the feeding frenzy, their eyes on Eric.

  He looked down at the rifle. He didn’t know how to chamber a new round, or if he even had to. He didn’t even know if there was another round. He was a stargazer, for Christ’s sake, and today every star had been blotted from the sky.

  “Liv,” he moaned.

  The dead moaned in return.

  Though without a star, Eric pressed the barrel to his chin and made a wish.

  THE END

  LARRY AND HANK’S BIG DEAD FISHING ADVENTURE

  By

  Eric S Brown

  “Vacation. Such a simple concept. A break from the routines of work and day to day life. Fun in the sun and all that. Beach balls, fishing rods, and big breasted women in bikinis. Tell me, Hank, do you see any women here?” Larry growled as he jerked the bolt back on his rifle and a spent casing popped into the air.

  “You just shot one through the head, Larry,” Hank said innocently, not comprehending Larry’s sarcasm.

  “No, you idiot! Dead ones don’t count! I am not looking to get my privates chewed off. I mean real, wet, breathing women.”

  Hank leaned closer to the edge of the roof the two of them had sought refuge on. He looked down into the sea of hungry corpses. Hundreds of gray, rotting faces stared up at him as the dead snarled and raged, pawing at the walls of the Burger King below them. “I don’t think so Larry. There’s a lot of dead ones though.”

  “Oh, why don’t we take the weekend off?” Larry mimicked Hank’s words from the day before. “We can drive down to the beach. Get in some deep sea fishing and see the babes in their swimsuits. Maybe we can even go to one of them nude beaches. It’ll be fun!” Larry chambered another round and took aim at the skull of a fat man in a John Deere cap with a ripped open stomach which leaked a continuous stream of black pus. Larry squeezed the trigger and the man’s head snapped back as the high powered round reduced his brain to mush. “Do you remember saying those words, Hank? I remember you talking me into this,” Larry grunted. “Well let me tell you, this is just loads of fun, buddy! You talked me into driving right into the middle of the apocalypse!”

  Hank’s forehead creased in thought. “Uh … I think the apocalypse would’ve happened whether we came down here or not. Besides, we’re getting great tans, stuck up here on this roof.”

  “Oh, Hank …” Larry shook his head.

  “It’s true,” Hank assured him. “We’re going to look awesome for the girls back home. You just have to look on the bright side of things, Larry. There’s always a silver lining. My dad said so.”

  Larry’s rifle clicked empty as he tried for another shot. Sighing, he lowered the weapon and began to reload it with the loose bullets he’d stuffed inside the pockets of his shorts. “We can’t shoot them all. I don’t have enough ammo and, sooner or later, those monsters are going to find the stairs that we used to get up here. Mind telling me what we’re going to do then?”

  Hank shrugged. “I don’t know, Larry, but you always think of something. Remember that time the boss figured out someone was taking money from the registers? You framed that mean guy, Pete, for it. Not only did we get to keep our jobs but that bastard got fired and couldn’t make fun of me no more.”

  Larry struggled for a way to explain to Hank the reality of their situation. “Those things on the street aren’t human, Hank. I can’t con them or put on my charm with them. They’re only interested in eating us. Nothing else.”

  Hank smiled at him. “No worries, Larry. Things will work out. You’ll see.”

  Not far away, Erin was straining with her back against the door of the beauty salon’s office. All her strength and the full weight of her slim, one hundred and twenty pound form was shoving into it, trying to hold back the dead on the other side. Bloody, broken and mangled fingers lined the edges of its frame, clawing at her. Melissa helped with one hand, her other busy stabbing at the fingers with a pair of scissors.

  Beth stood watching the two of them as she held two pairs of scissors of her own. “Did you hear that?” she shouted over Erin’s constant wailing and the hungry moans of the dead outside.

  “Little busy here!” Melissa snapped as she hacked at another groping hand. Two severed fingers plopped onto the floor at her feet.

  “That was a gunshot!” Beth exclaimed. “Someone else is still alive!”

  “Beth!” Melissa snapped. “Some help!”

  “Don’t you get it? We’re going about this all wrong. That door will never hold those things. We need to fight our way through them and make a run for it!”

  “You’re insane!” Erin shrieked.

  “No, I’m not,” Beth said firmly. “Let them in. We can take them.”

  “Fine. Have it your way,” Melissa conceded and backed away from the door.

  Erin’s screams grew higher in pitch as the weight and fury of the dead on the door slowly pushed her aside. A teenage Goth girl in fishnets half staggered, half fell into the office with them. Beth stepped up to meet her and buried a pair of scissors into her face above the girl’s nose. The girl’s eyes rolled into their sockets as her body slumped forward.

  “Follow me!” Beth ordered as she threw herself into the several creatures blocking her path. The creatures were slow and uncoordinated and Beth used that to her advantage, kicking, punching, and shoving her way through them. Blackened nails clawed at her skin and teeth snapped at her from all sides.

  Beth paused in the salon’s atrium, waiting for Melissa and Erin to catch up. A cop with one arm missing lunged at her. She planted her remaining pair of scissors straight into his right eye, ramming them in up to the hilt. “Cover me!” she yelled as she knelt over the cop’s corpse and tugged at the pistol holstered on his hip.

  Melissa rushed forward, shoving a shirtless, unkempt surfer-type with several bullet holes in his chest through the salon’s large glass window as he came at Beth. Erin slapped at an elderly dead woman, but stumbled over its walker and fell against a cabinet, casting cans of hairspray and
bottles of shampoo in all directions. The old woman leaned over her and sunk her false teeth into Erin’s shoulder. As the creature pulled her head away, trying to take a chunk of Erin with her, her teeth remained embedded in Erin’s flesh. Erin stared at the nicotine-stained things with wide, terror stricken eyes and screamed again.

  At last, Beth tore the gun free. Getting to her feet, she shot the old woman in the face, spraying Erin with black pus and gore. She then spun about, dropping two more of the creatures with quick headshots. “Come on!” Beth jumped through the salon’s shattered window into the street.

  The parking lot was full of cars waiting to be taken. She hoped one of them had keys in because she had no idea how to hotwire one. Dozens of the dead wandered among the vehicles and they all turned in their direction as Melissa and Erin appeared at her side.

  Beth spotted a bright green van with its side door open. “The van!” she cried, already sprinting for it.

  Larry silently brooded, waiting for the dead to come pouring onto the roof. It was only a matter of time and he knew it.

  “Larry!” Hank said, suddenly jumping up and down where he stood by the edge of the Burger King’s roof. “I found us some!”

  “Not now,” Larry muttered. “Can’t a guy even get a few minutes to make peace with his maker before he dies?”

  “There’s three of them Larry! They’re making a run for a van.” Hank rushed over and yanked him to his feet. “We gotta save them!”

  “What are you rambling about?” Larry snatched his arm away then he saw her. The red-haired girl jumped into a van across the street. Two more girls hopped in after her and the van’s door slammed closed as several creatures reached it just behind them and began pounding on all sides. The van shook and rocked where it sat as more dead huddled around it. With the image of the red-head burnt into his mind, Larry jerked up his rifle and started shooting. She was hot. Sure, he’d only gotten a glimpse of her, but all he needed to know right now was that she was the kind of girl he wanted to get to know.