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

  She hoped Zimmer would have enough time.

  She hoped he would not suffer.

  She hoped.

  Armed zombies fired at her, but they caused little damage. ’Roid zombies tried to stand in her way, but she drove over them.

  She put her foot down, the big truck roaring down the road, past the cages full of children, towards the zoo’s entrance.

  Mya felt sick. All these humans would die. But she couldn’t save them all. She would save two hundred, those in her trailer. That would be something. She wept, hating herself for letting those people in the cages and the enclosures die. But as her lover said, this was war. She’d been ready to die herself. Sacrifice was necessary. And at least the poor sods wouldn’t be eaten alive. Death would be very quick for them.

  She smashed through the gates and hit the Outer Circle road.

  Behind her, the sky lit up. An orange glow filled the darkness. And seconds later, an explosion deafened her and the lorry bucked.

  Mya screamed as the trailer swung out behind her. For a moment, she thought she’d lose control of the HGV. But she managed to keep from tipping over. She accelerated.

  If she failed to get far enough from the blast, the people in the trailer would be baked alive.

  She felt the heat from the explosion now. The earth trembled. A dark cloud of debris and smoke suddenly started to spread from the epicentre of the blast.

  It was catching her up, rolling down the road behind her like a wave.

  But Mya kept driving. She had lives to save. Two hundred in the trailer, and one in her womb.

  She drove without looking back.

  Finally, as she left London, she slowed down and glanced in her side-mirrors. A great fire raged in the centre of the city, lighting up the night. The cloud of dust had covered Central London and was seeping into the outskirts now.

  An hour later on the M1, seventy miles outside London at the Watford Gap Service Area, Mya stopped and opened the trailer.

  The smell was terrible. Humans staggered out, crying and screaming. They were sweaty and dirty, covered in their own shit and blood. As they poured out, Mya noticed that some were dead. Dozens of them. They would have to be burned or soon they would rise up as zombies.

  “Where do we go?” said a man, his bright blue eyes standing out against his dirty face.

  “I … I don’t know,” she said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “North. Scotland.”

  “Are … are you Human First?”

  She nodded.

  “Take us,” said the man.

  “How?”

  “In the trailer. We’ve been in it for twenty-four hours waiting for death. I think we can bear it for a few hours more if we know we’re going to live.”

  The crowd had gathered behind him. They murmured in agreement: “Take us, take us.”

  Mya thought for a second.

  Then she said, “Take your dead out and burn them. There should be some fuel in the petrol station in the service area.”

  “Burn them?” said the man.

  “Burn them,” she said.

  “But … you’re Human First, you don’t–”

  “They’re not human anymore,” said Mya. “Do it. And keep watch. I’m going to have some shut eye in the cab.”

  Mya fell asleep to the smell of burning flesh, and she dreamed of her unborn child, a daughter, she was sure, waiting for her nine months in the future.

  THE END

  THE ZOMBIE WHISPERER

  By

  Bob Lock

  ‘I’ve heard of a Horse Whisperer: a Dog Whisperer, even a Ghost Whisperer, but a Zombie Whisperer? You’re yanking my chain now, aren’t you?’ Doug said with a grin.

  I shook my head. ‘Honest, I saw it myself; this isn’t a second or third hand account. It isn’t even an urban myth. I’ve watched the guy do it, more than once.’

  Doug still looked at me sceptically. It’s been nearly five years since we came to London for a short-break holiday and the world fell afoul of the zombie plague which has almost wiped out humankind. Doug and his great ideas, a weekend in London will be fun, he said, a change from boring, wet Wales. We’re still here and Wales is one of the safest places in Britain, great. Anyway, no one has ever been able to get close to a zombie without the damn thing trying to rip your face off and shove it into its stinking mouth. I didn’t blame him for not believing me. I hardly believe it myself and yet I’ve witnessed it.

  ‘Go on then, tell me about it. I can’t wait to hear the punch line,’ he said with an exasperated sigh.

  I rolled my eyes. ‘It’s not a joke, man. Honest, I saw a guy do it.’

  He held his hands up, palms out towards me. ‘All right, already. Tell me about it!’

  I nodded. ‘Okay. The first time was three months ago, after we had that bad spell of snow, remember?’

  Doug nodded and made a hurry-up sign with his hands, he has an appallingly short span of attention.

  ‘Right, right, calm down. I was on my way back from rummaging around Tesco – there wasn’t much stuff left – I only managed to get a few tins of marrowfat peas and I bloody hate them but, hey, you never know. I could swap them perhaps …’ I shrugged and then carried on as I saw Doug’s patience was wearing thin. ‘So, I’m leaving the store when I see this guy just strolling along. He had his hands in pockets, like it was just another Sunday,’ I frowned, ‘or was it Saturday? All the damn days just seem to meld together now. Oh, as I was saying. He stopped when he saw me and raised a hand to wave. That’s when I spotted the zombie step out of a ruined car, which was wrapped around a lamppost, near the guy. I shouted to him and pointed.’

  ‘Did he run?’ Doug asked.

  ‘Nope, he just turned around, easy-like, as if he had all the time in the world. Which he didn’t because the zombie was only a few paces away and this was one of those fit types. You know the ones, no broken or shattered bones, no dragging leg, not too much damage done to it at all. It was a big bastard too, must have gone down with one hell of a fight before being bitten. Might have been a rugby player or something,’ I said.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And, well this guy just stepped towards it and held up both of his hands in the air as if he was going to press the damn thing back. He was making some sort of mewling sound. Damn weird it was. I just stood there, didn’t know what to do. I just expected to see him get his arms torn off and his stupid head kicked into touch.’

  ‘And did he?’ Doug asked, really interested now.

  I shook my head. ‘Nope. The strangest thing happened. The zombie just pulled up short. Stopped. Looked at the guy, tilted its head to one side, you know, like you see dogs doing, well like dogs used to do when they were still around.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Shit yeah. I almost crapped myself and I wasn’t even the one close to the bloody thing.’

  ‘Did it get him?’ Doug asked.

  ‘No, it just stood there, head askance, like it was listening to him. Like it could understand what the guy was saying.’

  ‘What the hell? He was talking to it?’

  ‘Yeah, he’d stopped doing the mewling sound and was whispering to it, not talking. He had his damn mouth right up to the bloody thing’s ear!’

  ‘You’re shitting me …’ Doug said with a shake of his head.

  ‘I shit you not, Doug,’ I replied and made a cross sign over my heart. ‘Honest. The guy was whispering to it, right in the zombie’s damn ear!’

  ‘What was he saying?’

  I looked at Doug open-mouthed. ‘You really think I was going to walk up and put my ear close to them to eavesdrop? Are you out of your mind, Doug?’

  ‘Weren’t you the least bit tempted?’ He shook his head. ‘The first time someone’s gone up to an undead, stopped it from trying to eat him and has actually spoken to it and you didn’t think of getting a little closer to find out how he did it?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘No? Why not?’


  ‘Listen, I saw a sword-swallower in a workingmen’s club in Aberystwyth once. He stuck bloody great blades down his throat. Blades that he took out afterwards and stuck in the floor. I didn’t go up to him either and ask him how he did it so I could have a go. So I sure as hell wasn’t going to put this pretty face anywhere near that big zombie’s gob, I can tell you,’ I replied, pointing to my ugly mug.

  ‘But this is different,’ Doug said animatedly, ‘don’t you see? If the guy can stop zombies attacking, imagine if he could teach all us survivors how to do it too! We’d be safe at last. You have to admit that.’

  I could see his point, but all I remember is at the time I didn’t want to get close to them. It just seemed surreal. I expected any minute to see loads of blood and flesh flying all over the place. And besides, the last time I took on-board anything my best mate said I ended up getting stuck in the world’s zombie capital. We can spend a night in Soho, the red light district! He’d said. Yeah great idea, only thing is after we’d gotten off the train from Swansea we found that all of London was a red light district and I don’t mean it was full of ladies of questionable moral standards. Everywhere was splattered with blood and gore. A great holiday; we spent it running like fuck until we’d completed the London Marathon at least three times over. I explained to Doug how I felt, but he just couldn’t get his head around it.

  ‘God, you don’t half moan,’ he said with a shake of his head, then added, ‘We have to find him.’

  ‘The guy, you muppet, the guy!’

  I stared at Doug. ‘You want to give it a try, don’t you?’

  He nodded. ‘Sure! If we can find him, and persuade him to let us in on his secret, then I bet we could do the same. Look, remember when they had those programs on the telly? You know … the Dog or Horse Whisperer ones? They not only had the expert training the animals but they also had other people learning how it was done too. They even wrote damn books about it. Like a do-it-yourself guide to whispering.’

  I remembered them. ‘I suppose we could go look for him. He must live around there somewhere, I saw him quite a few times after the first meeting. Nearly every time I saw him he whispered to a zombie too. He was always at it.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Doug was excited now. ‘So, after he whispered to them what happened?’

  I shrugged. ‘Not sure, but he got them to sit down,’ I replied. ‘Haven’t you noticed any zombies sitting around doing nothing?’ I asked him. ‘Not even looking at you when you walked past?’

  He nodded. ‘Hell yeah, now that you mention it!’ then he frowned. ‘Some of them had died, really died. They looked as though they’d just rotted away.’

  ‘Perhaps he just tells them to sit there and they do, until they die …’

  Doug grabbed my arm. ‘Let’s go over to Tesco. Perhaps we can spot him. It’s got to be worth a try.’

  ‘Okay, I guess. At least you can help me carry some more marrowfat peas back. They’re the only tinned food left. The store’s been emptied of everything else, but some bugger has got to be partial to them,’ I said and picked up my trusty double-barrelled twelve bore shotgun. I never used anything else after reading a Dumb-Arse’s Guide to Killing Zombies.

  ‘It’s strange seeing those zombies sitting around and knowing finally why the hell they’re doing it,’ Doug said as we made our way to Tesco’s. We must have passed dozens on our way there. Some were dead, some alive – well, not alive, but not dead – you know what I mean.

  ‘They’re not even going into that hibernating-sort-of-phase, all dried up and kind of mummified like they do when they can’t get enough nourishment. It almost looks as if they just give up and die,’ I remarked.

  ‘We need to find that guy …’

  ‘I know, Doug, I know. I should have spoken to him sooner. We could both be Zombie Whisperers now if I had.’

  Doug patted me on the back. ‘Never mind. Once we find him I’m sure he won’t mind passing on his skills to someone else. Everyone should be taught it, don’t you think?’

  I agreed with him and we pressed on. We’d almost arrived at Tesco’s car park when I spotted the guy. He was ambling along just like the first time I saw him, hands in pockets, eyes cast down and, on the wind, I could hear him tunelessly whistling something.

  ‘There he is!’ I said and pointed him out to Doug.

  ‘And he’s got a stalker,’ Doug noticed and he indicated a really decrepit-looking zombie that was shuffling along slowly behind the man.

  ‘Well unless he stops, that walking wreck isn’t going to catch him. It must have been ancient even before it was bitten. I swear I can almost see through its chest, the skin is so thin and papery,’ I said as we drew closer.

  ‘Our guy’s stopping. He’s seen us,’ Doug said as the man looked up and waved laconically in our direction. I’m sure he recognised me, because he smiled. I waved back.

  ‘He’s waiting for that geriatric zombie. He’s going to do his whispering thing,’ Doug said, all excited by the prospect. ‘We’ll let him do it and then ask him to teach us, okay?’

  I nodded. ‘Sure. I feel better about it now there are two of us. We can watch each other’s arse.’

  Doug pushed me. ‘I’m not that sort of bloke,’ he said and laughed.

  ‘Ha ha. Oh, look the bicentennial zombie has finally reached him,’ I said as we watched the guy. As before, he raised his hands and made a mewling sort of sound. The zombie faltered and stopped.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Doug said quietly. ‘I have to admit that I still thought you were taking the piss, but you’re right. The guy is whispering to it.’

  We watched breathlessly as the man bent forward and whispered into the ancient zombie’s ear. We continued to watch breathlessly as the ancient zombie tilted its head at an angle, dog-like – and then lunged at the man’s exposed throat and ripped a huge lump of it away. Part of the man’s windpipe dangled from the old zombie’s jaws as it moved forward again towards the Zombie Whisperer, who was trying desperately to stem the outpouring of blood from the gaping wound in his neck. It was a futile effort and, as we held our breath, the man was down and the gutter was running crimson with his blood.

  I raised the shotgun to my shoulder and drew a bead on the ancient zombie’s head. It was pushing the remains of the man’s throat into its gore-encrusted mouth. It surprised both of us by staying upright for a second or two after I blew its head clean off with both barrels. But then it collapsed in a messy heap of bones, rags and desiccated flesh next to the dying man.

  We both ran towards him and then stopped warily as he held a blood-soaked hand out to us. Something was clutched in it, but we were afraid to get too close. Dark blood gushed out of his mouth. He coughed it away and with his dying breath he managed to gasp.

  ‘The old fucker was deaf …’ and, as his hand fell to the floor, an ancient hearing aid fell from his lifeless fingers.

  I reloaded and put two shells into the dead Zombie Whisperer’s head … just in case …

  THE END

  THE DAY I DISCOVERED THE TRUTH ABOUT THE MAN IN THE RED SUIT

  By

  R. Phillip Roberts

  *Dedicated with all my love to Raven Rachelle Dozier*

  I had hardly slept a wink all night, when at nearly five o'clock in the morning, I once again opened my eyes. Another noise in the darkness of the night had me shooting straight out of bed and over to the window, only to discover that another branch had fallen, or quite possibly the barn door had blown shut again, as a result of the harsh blustery winter wind.

  A fresh blanket of white covered the ground, hiding the tracks we had made over the last few days in the previous snowfall. In the light of the full moon everything took on an eerie cast, especially since the vast whiteness changed the appearance of all that I had grown familiar with over the last thirteen years of my life.

  With disappointment in my heart, I returned to bed, just as I had all previous times, with a promise to myself that I would not jump out of bed again
; that I would lay back down and fall asleep. Morning would come eventually, and if I could just fall asleep for a little while, then when I next opened my eyes, it would be time to go downstairs with the others.

  Yeah, right! Like that was going to work. It was Christmas Eve, and all through the house, not a creature was … well, you get the idea. I was filled with the excitement and anticipation that any child has at this time of year. And, I wanted to catch a glimpse of Santa, of course, even though my older brothers had told me that he did not exist. Liars!

  I know, I know! You wonder why a thirteen year old girl such as myself still believes in Santa Claus, right? Well, I believe in him because I actually saw him last year. But he did not fly through the air, nor did he have a team of magical reindeer to guide his sleigh from rooftop to rooftop; none of that nonsense. No siree! But Santa did come by sleigh, however.

  It was one year ago today, on a night just like this, in fact. As I lay in bed, I heard a sound. It was a familiar sound to be sure, but when one hears the approach of horses in the middle of the night out here in the country, it usually means something really bad has happened. So of course, I jumped out of bed and threw on my robe. I ran to the window, and to my surprise, saw that it was in fact Santa, coming across the field.

  Well, who else could it have been? The man wore a red suit, a red hat, with black shiny boots on his feet. His long beard was white, and his belly was big and round. Once he brought the team of horses that pulled the sleigh to a stop, he climbed out, pulling a large sack with him, which he slung over his shoulder before approaching the house.

  As if he could sense my presence, the jolly fat man stopped dead in his tracks and looked up at my window. For a moment, I was too scared to even breathe, but when he smiled and shook his head, I sighed with relief. Then the man bowed his head and continued up the path to the front door. I swear that I had heard the faintest sound of laughter, as the wind howled outside my window, blowing the large falling flakes of snow aloft in the air as they descended gracefully to the ground.