Collection of Stories for Demented Children

by Carroll, John H.

  He saw a movement to his right. A man was slowly shuffling through the trees a short distance away. Tobias stood up and waved, the panic instantly going away. “Hello, Sir! I’m lost. Can you help me get back home to the village, please?” His mother would be very proud of him for saying please.

  The figure stopped, turned and shuffled toward him with a lurching movement. Tobias ran toward the figure, but stopped abruptly. The man looked very unhealthy. His skin was grey with some on his face hanging down, his left kneecap was showing through his pants and one of his eyeballs was rolling around in its socket. “Brainsss?” it asked.

  “You’re really ugly!” Tobias exclaimed. “Can you help me get back home to the village?”

  ***

  Zachary Zombie was on a mission to find some newts for Gert, the Wicked Witch of the Forest. A while back, Zachary had been a thief intent on stealing some magical potions from the witch’s tower. However, a magical trap caught Zachary and zapped him to death with lightning. Upon finding his dead body on the stairs, Gert decided to turn him into a zombie servant bound to do her bidding. He wasn’t a normal zombie. The witch had done something to lock his soul into his dead body and as a result, he could still think, although it took longer with a mushy brain.

  He heard someone say hello a short distance away. Turning to look, Zachary saw a boy waving and saying, “I’m lost. Can you help me get back home to the village, please?” Zachary was very impressed that the boy said please, so he lurched over to see what was wrong.

  As the boy skidded to a stop in front of him, Zachary blurted out, “Brainsss?” It was a habit he tried to control, but the urge for brains was part of being a zombie and the word came out of his mouth at random times.

  “You’re really ugly!” the boy exclaimed. “Can you take me back to the village?”

  When he was alive, Zachary had been rather handsome. His charming good looks were one of the things he missed the most. The other thing he missed was the way his right eye used to stay where it was supposed to. Now it was spinning around in his head, making him dizzy. The view inside his head was not all that pretty either.

  “Villagshe? Home?” he asked for clarification. Zachary’s brain was decayed, so he liked to make sure he understood what people were saying.

  “Yes. Will you please take me home to the village?” the boy asked. Zachary was very impressed that the boy had said please again.

  Zachary wasn’t supposed to go to the village. For some reason, whenever a zombie appeared, villagers lit torches and brandished pitchforks. It was a very bad habit that villagers had. However, the boy was lost in the dangerous woods and Zachary did know how to get to the village, and the boy had said please. It was very important to say please whenever possible. Zachary’s mother had taught that to him. “Villagshe, yeshh,” he told the boy.

  “Thank you!” the boy exclaimed happily. “My name’s Tobias, what’s yours?”

  “Tobiashh,” Zachary repeated, making sure he had it right. “Namesh Zshachary.”

  “jjack . . . shack . . . oh! Zachary! You’re name’s Zachary!” Tobias exclaimed as he figured out the name. “You talk funny, kind of mushy like your face,” the boy pointed out. Zachary nodded in agreement. It was a personal failing that he was trying to work on.

  Tobias took Zachary’s hand and waited to be led. Zachary thought about which way to go. It took a moment since his brains were decayed, but he finally decided that it would be best to go along the cliffs by the sea. The forest had too many dangers in it for a little boy. He led Tobias in that direction.

  A stag suddenly appeared in front of them. It was a majestic beast with a yellow glow and its head held high. “A human hunter killed my mother, therefore the boy must die!” it declared in righteous anger, lowering its twelve pronged antlers at Tobias.

  Zachary knew instantly that it was a magical deer: partially because it glowed, but mostly because it talked. He pushed Tobias to the side in order to protect the boy from the lunging stag. It hit Zachary square in the chest, lifted him up with its antlers and threw him into the air. Zachary fell to the ground with a squishy thud. “Ewwww,” the deer stated un-majestically and began scraping its antlers on a nearby tree in an attempt to get the zombie goo off.

  “Wow! That was neat!” Tobias exclaimed, looking back and forth between the stag and zombie in admiration. Zachary got up and checked to make sure all his body parts were still attached. There were a couple of puncture wounds and a few maggots had escaped from his chest, but that appeared to be the worst of the damage. Then he realized that half of his vision was missing. The spinning eye was gone.

  Searching around for a moment, he finally saw it impaled on a tine of the stag’s antlers. Worried that the stag would damage it further while trying to scrape off zombie goo, Zachary lurched forward. One of the advantages of being a zombie was having the strength of ten men. He grabbed the deer by the antlers and twisted it to the ground. Then he sat on its head and carefully plucked the eyeball off the antler while the stag bleated and kicked its legs in desperation.

  Zachary stood up and examined the eyeball, ignoring the stag that jumped up and flailed around trying to shake zombie mush off its face. There was a hole through the eyeball, so Zachary licked it on both sides to fix the hole before setting it back in the socket. It was a little known fact that zombie saliva could heal minor zombie wounds. It was possible it would work on non-zombie wounds as well, but no one would let a zombie close enough to lick them in order to find out. Not only did the eye work again, but it had stopped spinning, making him very happy.

  “That’s really gross!” Tobias stated with glee. “I wish I could do that!” He gently poked his eye with a finger and stretched out his tongue in an attempt to reach it. “Nope! It’s too far away and I think mommy would be mad if I took my eye out like that.”

  “Villagshe, home,” Zachary told the boy, holding out his hand. Tobias took it and they walked away from the deer that was still bleating and jumping in disgust at having been slimed.

  It wasn’t long until they emerged from the forest onto the windswept cliffs. The sun was nearly set and its golden rays streaked out from the horizon, causing the bottoms of the clouds to glow brilliant yellows, oranges, reds and purples. It was a truly beautiful sight and the smell of sea spray filled the air. Off in the distance to their right, away from the village, thunder rumbled. Zachary looked in that direction and jumped when he saw a bolt of lightning. He had become terribly afraid of it.

  “Look! There’s a woman near the edge of the cliff.” Tobias said. Sure enough, a woman in a flowing white dress and cloak stood with her arms spread. She was staring into the sunset while a breeze from the ocean swept her dress and beautiful blonde hair back. “Let’s go see if she’ll help us get back to the village!” Tobias tugged on Zachary’s arm, pulling it loose from the shoulder socket. It fell to the ground with a meaty thud and both of them stared at it for a moment. “. . . Oops,” Tobias finally said.

  Zachary reached down and picked up the arm. He set it against the shoulder where it reattached. It was another nice feature of being a zombie. While body parts did fall off, they also reattached easily. “That’s really neat,” Tobias told him. “I wish I could pull my arm off and put it back on. Sorry I pulled yours off.”

  “Shalright,” Zachary reassured him.

  “Shal . . . You mean it’s alright?” Tobias clarified.

  “Yeshh.”

  “Okay. Let’s go talk to the woman on the cliff, okay?” Tobias suggested again.

  “Yeshh.” They walked toward the sea cliffs. Tobias was very careful not to yank on his arm after that.

  ***

  Anise stood at the edge of the cliff with her arms spread wide. The breeze brushed her beautiful blonde hair against her cheeks as she cherished her dramatic pose. Everything was perfect. The sun was setting and lighting up the clouds in brilliant golden orange hues. Far to the right, lightning lit the sky, sending thunder to mix with the sound of the waves
crashing against the rocky beach below.

  To the left, the cliffs gradually sloped downward until they leveled off near the village that was set between the forest and the ocean about a mile or two away. The village was where Anise lived her lonely and miserable life with no one to care about her.

  Oh sure, her mother and father doted on her, all the girls wanted to be her best friend and all the boys in the village thought she was beautiful, but that was to be expected. Anise deserved to live in a brilliant white castle with pink bows and her very own prince to take care of her and give her ponies to ride. But that was never going to happen. After all, her father was only an innmaster with a tiny three level inn that only took up two blocks. How would a prince ever notice her in such squalor?

  In the evenings, just before sunset, Anise would walk up the cliff road past the spooky graveyard where she was certain that zombies, ghosts and vampires had parties. She would continue up to the top of this cliff where she could watch the sun sink into the water at the edge of the world. Here she would spread her arms out theatrically and wait for a prince to come along and save her.

  Anise wasn’t actually going to jump, but she wanted very much for a handsome prince to think she was so that he would find her interesting and take her to the castle to marry him and live happily ever after while birds sang to her and bunnies swept the floor; not the terribly sad emo bunnies, but the happy white fluffy bunnies.

  Looking down from the very edge where she stood, she could see the rocky beach below. It was quite a ways down. A young voice sounded from behind her. “Hi! Can you help Zachary get me home to the village?” It startled her and she took a hurried step back so she wouldn’t accidentally fall over the edge.

  “Don’t startle me like that!” She whipped around to see who had the nerve to disturb her dramatic musings. Standing there hand in hand was a zombie and a young boy. She stared at the zombie with her jaw open in stunned silence.

  “Brainsss?” the zombie asked.

  Anise screamed a perfectly pitched scream of terror that echoed up and down the coast. Then she turned and ran away as fast as possible.

  It took her a moment to remember that she had been standing at the edge of a cliff. Anise let out a fresh scream.

  ***

  Zachary and Tobias looked over the edge as the screaming girl fell and went splat against a rock. “Well, that was stupid,” Tobias observed.

  “Yeshh. Shtupid,” Zachary agreed.

  “Let’s go to the village and I’ll tell daddy. He’ll know what to do,” Tobias suggested.

  “Villagshe, home.” Zachary nodded and the two of them turned back to the cliff road that headed to the village.

  A short while later they were walking along the fence of the graveyard, which bordered the cliff road. Zachary heard the music from the nightly party that all the dead and undead attended. “Is that music?” Tobias asked.

  “Yeshh. Dead party in graveyard,” Zachary said slowly. He was good at getting words out if he had time.

  “Can we see it before you take me home?” Tobias asked eagerly. “I always wanted to see real dead people.”

  Zachary thought about it for a minute. It took that long for the thoughts to make it through the mush in his head. He really couldn’t think of any reason why not. “Shhure.” They were at the open front gate leading in. The zombies made sure it was always open, even breaking the hinges whenever the daytime caretakers fixed them. No one living ever came around at night because it was too dangerous.

  The bottoms of the clouds still glowed pink and purple even though the sun had sunk into the ocean at the edge of the world. Torches had recently been lit along the paths. Zachary led Tobias, still holding onto his hand. He liked it. Not many people ever wanted to hold Zachary’s hand anymore or even touch him . . . or get anywhere near him.

  The music came from xylophones made of real bones and fiddles strung with strings made from tendons. It was an exciting party. Skeletons spun their bones in wild clattering dances, while zombies did the shuffle. Ghosts floated to and fro, talking about the good old days when they were alive. Vampires acted batty and Werewolf Jack led the entertainment.

  “This is so neat!” Tobias exclaimed in wide-eyed wonder.

  “Yeshh,” Zachary agreed. He couldn’t help but shuffle along, moving his shoulders up and down with the beat. Alive, dead or undead, everyone enjoyed a good party. They joined a group of zombies that were doing a line dance. Zombie line dances were never a good thing. It was certain that a body part or two would go flying. Most of the time, the parts would get back to the correct owner, but mix-ups were known to happen.

  An arm flew off and hit Zachary in the shoulder. The owner grabbed it quickly. “Shorry,” he told Zachary.

  “Shalright,” Zachary assured him. A part of him remembered that he was supposed to be collecting newts for Gert the Wicked Witch, but with a quick shake he moved maggots to that part of his brain and the thought went away.

  An exquisitely dressed vampire with slick black hair and a long elegant cloak walked up in front of Tobias. “What have we here? Is it an innocent little boy?” he asked in a heavy accent. “How delicious.” Then he smiled a toothy smile.

  Tobias grabbed onto Zachary’s leg and looked at the vampire fearfully. Luckily, zombies were immune to all vampire powers, so Zachary wasn’t the slightest bit afraid. “Bite yourshhelf,” he told the vamp.

  “Give him to me now, zombie! I hunger for innocent blood.” With that, the vampire lunged forward.

  Zachary head-butted the vampire, knocking him to the ground. The zombie line dance stopped as they all watched in fascination. A few other vampires came to back up their friend. Zachary started moving toward the path leading back out of the graveyard.

  The vampire slowly stood back up, shaking his head in an attempt to recollect his senses. “Eww!” he exclaimed, wiping his forehead with a sleeve. “I now have zombie mush on my face, you moron!” He flapped his cloak about. Zachary led Tobias down the path, backing away from the outraged vamp. “This is gross, you idiot! Eww, eww, eww! My pale skin is fragile and perfect. It will take me hours to get this mush off.”

  It was then that another zombie head-butted the vampire. Suddenly all the zombies were head banging and body-slamming the vampires. Werewolf Jack had the musicians play heavy metal music by banging chains on empty suits of armor. One of the vampires was being carried along the top of the crowd of zombies and skeletons while waving his arms and legs in the air. The party was getting serious.

  Zachary and Tobias managed to get back to the main gate and they continued back down the cliff road toward the village. “That was neat! You’re my best friend ever, Zachary.” Tobias gave him a big hug. Zachary really liked the boy. He didn’t even mind it when Tobias tried to wipe off some of the zombie slime that had gotten on his hands.

  The sky was completely dark by the time they neared the village. The magical streetlights that illuminated the main street of the village had been activated. Side streets had simple lanterns to light them. Scents of evening meals wafted lazily by while the sight and sound of people going home for the night filled the air.

  They walked into town along the main road. Zachary knew there was something wrong with the plan, but it was taking him a while to figure it out. A woman shrieked, “Zombie! That zombie is eating the little boy’s brains!” That’s when Zachary remembered that they should be walking through dark alleys instead of down the main street. He took offense to the accusation that he was eating Tobias’s brains as he was doing no such thing.

  A couple of men came out of a door with pitchforks and torches in hand. Zachary wondered if villagers kept those things next to their front doors. Luckily, the torches weren’t lit and the villagers had to stop to do so.

  “C’mon Zachary! We have to get away!” Tobias shouted. He yanked on Zachary’s arm, pulling it off again. Zachary picked it up and reattached it as he shambled into a nearby alley behind the boy. They turned down the next street, wh
ich didn’t have anyone on it and then they dodged down the next alley. Tobias was panting heavily as they turned the corner of another alley that led behind a small inn.

  Zachary was impressed that he had kept up with the boy. He could move fast for a zombie. “I think we’re safe now,” Tobias said, looking back around the corner. “My house is on the edge of the forest. I know the way and we can stay on the back streets if you keep me safe.”

  “Yeshh, home, shhafe,” Zachary agreed. They continued down the alley. The back door to the inn opened as they walked by and a cook came out of the kitchen with trash in one hand and a frying pan in the other.

  “Zombie!” the cook yelled in surprise. He swung the frying pan and smacked Zachary in the head, causing a ringing sound in Zachary’s skull. Everyone knew frying pans were one of the most dangerous weapons to use against a zombie.

  “No! He’s taking me home. Please don’t hit him with the frying pan!” Tobias exclaimed, grabbing onto the cook’s arm. The cook stopped, impressed by the fact that the boy said please.

  The ringing in Zachary’s head clouded his thoughts. He got angry and his inner zombie took over. “Brainsss” Zachary moaned as he wrapped his arms around the cook and bit his head.

  “Oww! He’s biting my head! He’s biting my head! Make him stop! Aaaggghhhh!” the cook shrieked in terror.

  “Zachary! No! Stop biting his head!” Tobias began pulling on Zachary’s arm, the good one. Rational thought came back and Zachary let go of the cook right away, ashamed of what he had done. A soulless zombie wouldn’t have stopped, but Zachary was better than that.

  “He bit my head!” the cook exclaimed in outrage, holding the wound in both hands. “Eww! The zombie bit my head! Eww!” Tobias pulled Zachary away from the cook who sat down on the back step of the door, rocking back and forth. “I can’t believe a zombie bit my head!”