Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 3

by Anthology

  The Marches, Land thought. They live outside of the city. The inoculation drives must have missed them somehow.

  Damned zombie-lovers––they didn’t even inoculate their own kid against becoming one of them! How irresponsible can they be?

  Land slid his hand down Hazelwood’s thigh to her holster. He pulled out her service pistol, drove it into Paul’s chin, and squeezed the trigger.

  The Cyclist

  SIMON WOOD

  Before you condemn me, know this: I’m a product of society. You made the monster you see before you, the monster who will ultimately take your life. Just remember, you brought this upon yourself. You are responsible. I’m not. And what has changed me from someone like you into someone like me? If I had to put a label on it, I would have to say your selfishness. People like you stopped me from doing what I love: cycling.

  Ignoring health and environmental benefits, cycling is one of the last bastions of modern life where the individual defines the limits. I could ride as fast as I liked. I could ride where I liked. It was freedom. But it’s freedom I don’t possess anymore. I’m cursed; damned by all motorists to trawl the streets searching for vengeance. But, don’t worry; I only kill those who deserve it. And you deserve it.

  You ran the light. You didn’t think about me. The shriek of tires matched the panic in your eyes when you realized it was all too late and you wouldn’t stop in time. I bet you shit bricks when you hit me and thought you’d killed me.

  I wonder, did you see me smile? No? Pity. You should. It’s a sight to behold. Scar tissue isn’t as resilient as skin and splits easily. My face bleeds when I smile too hard. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to see me smile?

  Don’t turn your head away. Look at me. You should see this, the damage you’ve done, your contribution to my tapestry of wounds. Yes, the scars are nasty and the malformations are disfiguring. When you’ve shattered every bone in your body and have had every square inch of flesh flayed from you, from repeated collisions––like I have––what do you expect? I’m a patchwork of past agonies.

  But don’t worry; it doesn’t hurt. It used to, but I’m incapable of hurt now. I’m calcified bone and scar tissue. My bones can’t break and my nerve endings can’t bond to my scars. I’m indestructible, like a superhero.

  Two months after the doctors had set my last bone and grafted my last scrap of virgin flesh, a UPS truck struck me. I should have been killed, but I didn’t have a scratch. I realized I had a gift and shouldn’t waste it. That’s when I knew what I was meant to do.

  Lying there, watching the driver panic, euphoria and hatred mixed in my veins creating a volatile cocktail. I got up and snapped that UPS driver’s neck. I can’t remember ever being happier. I was striking back for the cyclist, giving back what we’d been taking all these years.

  I don’t kill drivers indiscriminately. I’m not a psychopath. I kill those who would have killed me. The universe has to remain in balance. Someone has to pay the ferryman, right? If it’s not me, then it has to be you.

  Actually, I’m performing a public service, ridding the world of the irresponsible, the reckless, the drunk and the fun seekers who hurt cyclists for kicks. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who’ve run me down because they think it’s funny. People have thrown bottles at me, squeezed me into walls and flung doors open as they’ve passed me. But the fun ends when I tear the smile from their faces.

  Yes, I know, you didn’t mean it, but what has that got to do with anything? Just because you got lucky hitting someone like me today doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been someone less resilient. You’ve done what you’ve done and you have to pay.

  You have no idea how much I despise you drivers, and how much pleasure I get from watching you squirm. I’m so driven by hate that my bile is corrosive. My spit cuts through blacktop like it’s wet Kleenex, so you can imagine what it can do to flesh. Shall I spit on you to demonstrate?

  I wish you wouldn’t plead. Look, being a parent is no qualification for having your death sentence commuted. I was a parent once. You wouldn’t think it to look at me, I know. My wife and child left me when I refused to give up my bike. They were seeing a transformation from husband and father to… this. I couldn’t give up cycling, you see. I’d done nothing wrong. Outlaws surrounded me and I was the last innocent man… and innocent men don’t surrender. I learned that from western movies.

  No, I won’t look into my heart. I already saw it when an eighteen-wheeler ripped my chest open. My heart did nothing but twitch and squirt my blood out of holes that shouldn’t have been there. Give me one good reason why I should let you live. Think long and hard now. Impress me and I might just reconsider, but if you don’t, well, you know what will happen.

  Hmm, an interesting point. No, I don’t have anyone to tell my story. Everyone who knows me is dead, like me. Do you think you can make me a legend?

  Are you just saying that so I’ll let you go?

  No? Good. But I can’t let you off that easy. A spook story never convinced anyone by itself. People like to have something tangible to believe in. They’ll believe you if I leave my mark. You can tell my story, but you’ll never drive again. I’ll let you go, but I’m taking your eyes.

  You had to know there would be a price. Now don’t wriggle. You’re not going anywhere. If you thought my spit could burn, you’ll be amazed by the heat of my uric acid.

  Ah, your screams flatter me.

  Don’t worry; the pain won’t last. When it’s over, tell everyone I’m riding the roads. They won’t know which cyclist is me and they shouldn’t try to guess. They should just know to beware the Cyclist. I’m here and I’m waiting for them to break the rules.

  Family First

  JG FAHERTY

  Intense pain filled the man’s head. He couldn’t think clearly. He tried to focus but a burning hunger filled him, obliterating all other thoughts.

  Where am I? Woods, trees. Daylight. This is all wrong. I was in my car. Driving… those people, on the road…

  Teeth, biting… blood.

  The rest disappeared into a hazy, black cloud. When it cleared, new thoughts came to him.

  Wait… my name is John. I have a family. A wife. Sheila. She’s blonde. The children…

  The ground slanted in front of him, causing him to lose his balance.

  Must climb, go home. Find my family. One hand on the ground, then the other. Move my feet.

  I can do this.

  He reached the top of the hill. A car sat there, the door open, the windows broken.

  My car? Was there an accident?

  Why didn’t anyone find me?

  Walk, must walk. Someone will see me. Find me.

  He took one step and then another. It was hard to move his feet, as if they didn’t want to obey.

  So hungry. It hurts, hurts inside. Need a hospital.

  Need food.

  The sound of an approaching truck broke the stillness. The tractor-trailer came to a stop in a squeal of airbrakes.

  He tried to speak to the man climbing out of the cab.

  “I… I… help…”

  The sudden smell of food overwhelmed him, pushed away all other thoughts.

  Food. Must eat. Must…

  Oh, God, no! I…

  Must eat.

  ~

  “Mom, why can’t we leave? Everyone else is gone.” Bobby Grainger set down his binoculars and turned his piercing blue eyes, so much like his father’s, towards his mother.

  “You know why, sweetie. It’s too dangerous. Those things are out there. There’s no place for us to go.” Sheila ran a hand through her hair, smoothing it back from her face. Her hand came away greasy. It’d been four days since the dead rose up. Since then, the closest she’d come to bathing had been washing her hands and face in the kitchen sink.

  There was no way she was leaving Bobby and Stacie alone, not even for ten minutes. And at ages nine and eleven, they refused to stay in the bathroom with her, or bathe together.
<
br />   She knew the severity of the situation hadn’t sunk into their MTV-trained attention spans. To them this was something new, something exciting, not a life-threatening catastrophe.

  Not yet.

  It would take them a while to realize television, school, their friends, the mall, all those things might be gone for a long time to come.

  Maybe forever.

  “There’re zombies here, too, Mom,” Bobby said, using the one word she hated to hear. “Maybe we could drive into the city, find the police. Or go deep into the woods, to a cabin or something.”

  Sheila shook her head. “No. All the cities, from Princeton to Manhattan, are full of them. Don’t you remember the news before the TV went out? And we don’t know what’s in the woods. They could be there, too.”

  “Besides, dorkwad, you don’t know the first thing about camping. You couldn’t start a fire with matches and gasoline.” Stacie, her dark blonde hair still streaked with pale yellow from their vacation at Seaside last month, gave her younger brother the kind of smug look pre-teens seem to develop from nowhere.

  “Oh, yeah? Well you…”

  “Enough, both of you.” Sheila used what her kids called ‘the tone.’ Four days stuck in the house with her two children and they were already on each other’s nerves.

  For the thousandth time she wished John was here with them. He had a way of saying just the right thing, a funny, off-the-cuff comment or a calming word, to diffuse almost any situation.

  He’d gone missing the same day the dead began rising from their graves. He’d been working late––she hadn’t expected him back ‘til after midnight––so it wasn’t until morning that she’d realized he’d never made it home.

  By then, the police had their hands full and weren’t even answering the phones, let alone looking into missing persons cases.

  Every time she thought about him, a reluctant acceptance of his death struggled with the hope that he’d gotten off the turnpike and found a place to hide, a motel or office building, and that he was alive.

  And if he was alive, she knew he’d find a way back to them. That was the real reason they weren’t leaving. But she couldn’t broach that subject with Stacie and Bobby.

  It wouldn’t be fair to get their hopes up.

  Not when the chances were so small.

  ~

  John Grainger looked down at himself.

  God help me, I did it.

  The memories had returned, his thought process almost normal. As if…

  As if the flesh and blood restored them.

  He wiped his hands on his torn and filthy shirt, leaving red smears, strings of skin and tissue, and pink gobs of brain.

  He’d devoured the man from the truck. Torn his throat out. Clawed into him until he reached the softest parts, the juiciest tidbits.

  His mind had screamed in horrified disgust but something else had control.

  The craving.

  The human meat had tasted better, more satisfying, than any meal he’d ever eaten in his life.

  And it had restored him.

  I’m a monster.

  But was he? Maybe it was only this one time; maybe the human flesh had returned his sanity, his ‘self.’

  I need to get back to Sheila and the kids. They’ll be worried. Have to make sure they’re safe, then they can get me to a hospital, a research lab. Someplace where they can study me, find a cure.

  Return me to normal.

  John stepped over the remains of the driver and looked inside. The oversized gear lever and confusing array of buttons and gauges convinced him he’d be better off walking.

  Home. Have to get home.

  John headed north on the Turnpike towards Fort Lee.

  Towards home.

  ~

  “Mom, I see something.”

  Sheila hurried over to the front window, alarmed by the quiver in her daughter’s voice. It had been three days since the last creature approached their cul-de-sac, let alone came near their house. One of the neighbors had shot that one, just before he’d packed his whole family into their Denali and taken off for God knows where.

  The body still lay on the sidewalk, a bloated sack of putrefying flesh after seventy-two hours in the hot, muggy July weather.

  It’s like a giant version of a dead woodchuck, she thought, barely able to contain a sudden insane giggle.

  Now isn’t the time to lose it. Get a grip.

  She moved Stacie aside and peeked out the window. Sure enough, something was moving at the far end of the street where it branched off from Culver Avenue, right by the Henderson’s house.

  “Bobby, give me the binoculars.” The sudden magnification made it seem as if she’d leaped down the street.

  The person was dead, no doubt about that––the herky-jerky movements, the shuffling feet, the dirty, torn clothes covered in blood.

  Sheila’s stomach did a flip-flop, threatening to release the tomato soup she’d had for lunch. She closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping the food down.

  They didn’t have enough to spare to waste it on being squeamish.

  When she had herself under control, she opened her eyes. The thing––zombie, dammit. Call it what it is––had turned away and was now walking towards the Henderson’s front door.

  She realized the Henderson’s car was still in the driveway. Were they still home, hiding out the same way she had her family hidden here?

  The zombie stopped and tilted its head, turning first one way and then the other. She couldn’t see its face but it looked as if the creature was sniffing at something.

  Smelling for food? Can they do that?

  “Bobby, Stacie. Shut all the windows in the house. Hurry.”

  “But Mom, it’s hot out. If we shut the windows…”

  “Goddammit, Bobby, shut up and do what I say!” She kept her voice low, not shouting. If the things could smell people they sure as hell could hear them.

  Footsteps behind her let her know the kids had gone off to do what she’d told them. She’d explain later. She pulled down the windows nearest to her, the ones on either side of the front door, and closed the gauzy, blue curtains as well.

  She pushed aside the material just enough to aim the binoculars out.

  The undead man had moved again. She managed to catch a glimpse of his leg as he went around the side of the house, heading for the Henderson’s back yard.

  She watched him open the gate, realized they couldn’t be as mindless as the news said. Theirs is funny. It sticks. You have to jiggle the latch and pull up on the gate at the same time. Unless you knew that you could stand there forever trying to open it.

  The kids came back down the stairs, Bobby’s sneakers thump-thumping on the wood. The way his feet grew, he’d soon need another pair.

  Doesn’t look like we’ll be shopping anytime in the near future. By now the Paramus Park and Garden State malls look like something from Dawn of the Dead.

  Hell, we might all be barefoot by winter.

  If we’re still alive.

  That last thought was a black crow that circled endlessly through the landscape of her thoughts. She’d catch sight of it during the day, sometimes far away, sometimes close by. At night it roosted right over her as she lay on the bed, Bobby and Stacie sleeping on either side of her.

  “Mom, can I have something to drink? I’m thirsty.”

  You think you’re thirsty now? Wait until the water’s shut off and we’re living on what falls from the sky, she wanted to shout at him, but John’s face appeared, telling her to stay calm.

  They’re just kids, he would have said. You’re the adult. Act like it.

  As long as the water’s working let them drink all they need.

  “Go ahead. In fact, let’s all go get one.”

  ~

  I’m a monster.

  John couldn’t deny it any longer. He stood in the Henderson’s living room, which resembled a charnel house more than the relaxed, classically-decorated space it had been b
efore he’d arrived. The last thing he remembered was opening the gate, the one that stuck all the time.

  When his awareness returned he’d been standing over Tom Henderson’s corpse, his mouth full of blood and tissue and loops of intestines around his hands, their other end still attached to Tom’s body.

  Puddles of blood soaked into the Persian rug; more splattered across the walls and furniture.

  And the taste––oh Lord, the exquisite, wonderful flavor!

  A gaping hole in Tom’s abdomen revealed where the delicious bounty had originated. Chunks of brownish-red liver lay strewn around the floor.

  From where he stood John could see into the kitchen. Enid Henderson lay on the linoleum, her gray-haired skull shattered and empty. A brick lay beside her, which he must have used to crack open her head like a walnut.

  All to satisfy his unholy lust, his craving for human flesh.

  “Jesus Christ.” It came out as garbled moan.

  The past three days had been spent alternating between cloudy awareness and bestial savagery. Walking the Turnpike. Scavenging among the corpses in their cars.

  But now his head was clear.

  He remembered why he was here.

  Bobby. Stacie.

  Sheila.

  He had to get them somewhere safe, away from the monsters.

  Monsters like him.

  John closed his eyes, tried to block out the explosion of gore surrounding him. There had to be a way to be around his family without losing control.

  A shadow moved past one of the front windows.

  He walked to the front door, peered outside. Three men staggered down the center of the street, heading towards the far end of the cul-de-sac.