Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 3

by Anthology

  ~

  Eddie wandered, his thoughts a jumble. He sensed a need, but for what? Dimly he recalled the taste of food, of strong drink. He vaguely remembered the touch of a woman and how that made him felt. Then there was the needle, the high that had made him float and forget. It had taken the place of the others, but it was still not enough, not now, not tonight.

  Brightness blinded him. His wanderings had taken him out of the dark streets and alleys and now he found himself on Greene Street.

  Streetlights, stoplights, neon and the glow of the not so distant Oriole Park all hit his too sensitive eyes at once. It came back––he needed the light, the golden light he’d been denied earlier. But no, that light was gone, taken from him when he was called back. Its absence left a yearning, a hole to be filled. Instinct turned Eddie to the east, towards the one man who had always given him what he needed.

  ~

  “We’ve been driving in circles for hours,” Russell complained. “It’s time to give it up.”

  “It’s only been an hour, and we’re not giving up,” Amberson said in a flat, determined tone.

  “Can’t we at least put out a description?”

  “And say what? Eastern CID looking for a walkaway from the Medical Examiner’s; suspect’s a light-skinned black male, about five-nine and believed to be dead?”

  “That would do it,” Russell said after some thought. “Look, Danny, we’re never going to find him this way. We turn right, he goes left and we miss him. We drive straight, he turns down an alley, he’s gone.”

  “So we quit?”

  “No, we start thinking like cops looking for a suspect. Eddie never was that bright, and I’m betting that whatever smarts he had died when he did and didn’t come back. He’s down to memory and habit. Let’s hit the Eastside, check out his haunts. See if anybody saw a zombie tonight.”

  Nobody had. Russell and Amberson hit all the corners where Eddie hung out. They questioned some of the girls he saw when he had the stuff to trade for their favors. They braced the low-level dealers Eddie knew. Everywhere was the same story.

  “Nope, ain’t seen him.”

  “Guess you ain’t heard, Eddie bought one tonight.”

  “Hasn’t been around.”

  “Eddie gone, some fool done kilt him over a phone call.”

  “Eddie got wasted.”

  “I want a lawyer. This is police harassment.”

  “Fast Eddie who?”

  “You guys don’t talk to each other, do you?”

  “Eddie wouldn’t get off the phone. Junkie wouldn’t wait. Blew him away.”

  “You 5-0, I don’t talk to 5-0.”

  “Thought I saw him. But he be dead, so it wasn’t him.”

  The two detectives questioned this last one more thoroughly. “Where’d you see him? Which way was he going? How long ago?” For answers they got “Around, down there, don’t know.”

  “The good news is,” Russell said, as Amberson turned down yet another side street, “is that he’s here somewhere.”

  “So says one lowlife out of ten. And what’s the bad news? Other than we haven’t found him yet.”

  “Who says there’s bad news?”

  “There’s good news, gotta be bad news.”

  Russell thought for a moment. “I guess the bad news is that Santos didn’t kill him. Just some crackhead who thought Eddie was taking too long on ‘his’ phone.”

  Amberson gave a rueful smile. “Yeah, it would have been nice to pin this one on Santos. Murder one, killing a witness––you get the needle for that.”

  “Damn shame,” agreed Russell. “Santos would have sung just to do twenty to life. Actually would have worked out better than if Eddie have stayed alive to give him up.”

  Amberson stopped the car, looked at his partner, an idea forming in his mind.

  ~

  I got a good life, Antoine Santos told himself. Not great, but good. A decent house, plenty of food, a nice ride, women when I want them. It’s not a mansion in Guilford, steak every night, a Mercedes and Playmates, but it’s better than the slobs I deal with have.

  Unlike his clients, the ones who bought and resold his product, Santos lived outside the drug area. His house was on the east end of Federal, close enough to the Eastern District police station that it was in a safer neighborhood than most. That’s why he bought it, for the security. He also liked the idea of the police helping to keep him safe, that the same cops trying to put him away were, by their very presence, protecting him. Irony, he thought, remembering an old English lesson. It was what Miss Helens back in high school would have called irony.

  And was irony, he wondered, about how it ended with that Fast Eddie guy? Word from the street was that Eddie was shopping him to the cops; that he’d worked some kind of deal to trade what he knew about the organization for cash and a ticket out. Santos was going to have the boy hit then he’d found out tonight that he wouldn’t have to. Poor Eddie, guess he forgot that you didn’t use the holy phone anytime St. Kevin was around. Hell, everybody knew that. Kevin thought that that phone was his direct line to God, that one day the savior would call him up and invite him to Heaven. He got very upset if anyone used it. God might call, and what if He got a busy signal? And who would have thought Kevin had a gun?

  As Santos contemplated his life, he heard a pounding on his front door. Who the Hell is that, he wondered. Wasn’t cops, they’d have broken down the door. Can’t be clients, they knew he didn’t sell direct. And his boys had the word not to come to the house. Always some fool didn’t get the message. Well, he’d get the message tonight, Santos decided. Find out who that fool is, then fire him or cut him off. He’ll be flipping burgers for his cash and going to the Westside for his stuff.

  Santos moved to go downstairs. The banging got louder. Then the crashing of glass. Santos paused, got his nine from under the bed, made sure the clip was good and the chamber was hot. He tucked it in his dip, just in case.

  More banging, more glass breaking. Santos got to his door just as the invader came through. “What the…” he started as he saw who it was.

  Fast Eddie stood in his doorway, his shirt bloody, clear fluid leaking from the wounds on his chest. His face and arms had a death pallor and he moved with the stiffness of the rigor that had come over him.

  “Saanntoooosss,” Eddie’s voice creaked as he raised his pale hands towards the drug dealer. “I neeeedddd…”

  Santos reached into his dip, pulled out his nine. “You’re dead,” he cried, recognizing the absurdity of his statement while realizing at the same time that it was true.

  Eddie ignored the gun, kept coming one step at a time. Santos fired––once, twice, a third time. Eddie’s body jerked with each impact, but he kept coming. Backing up, Santos emptied the clip. Eddie slowed, stopped, fell.

  Relief washed through Santos; he had stopped the Eddie-thing. He wondered what to do next, Eddie’s left hand twitched, then clawed the carpet. His right hand moved, fingers clutched the carpet and pulled his body forward. Slowly, Eddie crawled toward Santos.

  Russell and Amberson were just pulling on to Federal Street when they heard the shots. They looked at each other. “I got the back,” Russell said as they both bailed out of the unmarked car. Amberson gave his partner time to get around back before going through the open front door.

  Russell got to the rear of the house just in time to see Santos run out the kitchen door. Both men had their guns out. Santos saw Russell, made him for a cop and dropped his piece. A good thing. A second later, Russell would have done Santos like the dealer had tried to do Eddie.

  “You okay?” Russell heard his partner call form inside the house.

  “Okay,” Russell confirmed, snapping the cuffs on Santos. “You secure?”

  “Under control. Come on in.”

  “Let’s go,” Russell urged Santos forward. The dealer balked.

  “Not going back in there. Don’t take me back,” Santos pleaded.

  Russell shoved th
e dealer into the doorframe––hard. “Walk or get dragged. Either way you’re going in.”

  Amberson looked up as Russell came in from the back, pushing Santos ahead of him. “Found him,” he said, indicating the mostly lifeless body on the floor.

  Eddie was still trying to get to Santos, hands and knees weakly moving him along. Hearing the detective’s voice, a distant memory came back. He turned towards Amberson, raised an arm and pointed it towards the dealer. “Saanntoooosss,” he croaked out. Then, his appointed task done, and with what could have been a smile, or maybe just the effects of rigor, Fast Eddie collapsed and was finally still.

  The detectives were quick to seize the situation.

  “Doesn’t look good, Antoine. Dead man in your house, your bullets in him,” Amberson told Santos.

  “Why’d you steal him from the morgue? Going to dig the bullets out?” continued Russell.

  “No, no,” Santos protested. “He was dead when he came in and…”

  “And nobody’s going to believe that, Antoine.” Amberson interrupted. “Except maybe me and my partner.” The sound of sirens in the distant, getting closer. “You gonna deal, deal now, else you get you a manslaughter charge.”

  Men in blue uniforms rushing the house from front and back, Amberson and Russell, weapons holstered, holding up their hands and badges to stem the charge. “I’m yours,” Santos shouting over the initial confusion of men and voices. District detectives then homicide men arriving. Amberson and Russell holding tight to their charge.

  By the time morning came Santos had given up his entire network, from suppliers down to runners. In exchange, he was charged as an accessory after the fact in the death of Wallace Cromwell, a.k.a. “Fast Eddie,” with minimum sentencing guaranteed.

  As for how the theft of Eddie’s body was explained, Amberson and Cromwell referred anyone who asked to Dominic Jones. Jones, in turn, told the questioner to ask Santos. Santos, whose reputation was only enhanced by the belief that he had committed such an audacious crime, always denied it, but in such a way as to assure his listener that he had beyond doubt done the deed. The Medical Examiner’s Office did get a new state-of-the art security system to keep whatever had happened from happening again.

  With no one to claim it, Fast Eddie’s body was turned over to the Anatomy Board. Unusually well preserved for an unembalmed corpse, it was used for three weeks before it was cremated and the ashes disposed of.

  ~

  Safe and warm, Eddie again felt the warm embrace of loving arms. He floated, bathing in the warmth of the golden light. It was not for him, not this time. He’d been judged and he acknowledged that the judgment was fair and just. He felt a tug, somewhere a new life was being created. Consciousness faded as the soul that had once been Fast Eddie Cromwell sped off towards another chance at doing things right.

  Night of the Living Dead Bingo Women

  SIMON MCCAFFERY

  Even on her bad days, Edna Mae Brewer was invincible.

  She’d won five straight games since arriving at noon, excitedly calling out “Bingo!” after marking the last winning square on her playing sheets. The third time she fairly shrieked it in excitement, though her fellow contestants in the hall paid her not the slightest heed. The woman sitting directly across from Edna stared vacantly ahead like a wax figure, streaks of colored ink smeared across her face like a Maori mask. On Edna’s left, an elderly black man in a soiled, ripped turtleneck gazed up at the high ceiling while his outstretched hands groped blindly about on the wide table. He swept his ink dauber and stack of playing cards onto the floor and made no effort to retrieve them.

  In a remote way, this total disinterest in her good fortune rankled Edna, who was competitive by nature. In the old days, when a player’s numbers came in, folks had not just sat there like stones. Most cheered as the caller checked off the winning numbers. Others groaned and everyone applauded like disinterested businessmen at a luncheon. Some even glared at the winner with genuine hatred, muttering under their breath as they discarded their losing sheets. This was no way for a Christian to behave, Edna knew, but she could commiserate; she herself had sat near a big winner on occasion and felt resentment glow in the pit of her stomach like a hot lump of coal.

  Tonight, however, Edna felt just fine, thank you. This was largely due to the fact that she had won every game of the session so far, from the Early Bird up through the Bonus Blackout round. Some of the wins had taken longer than others, but she’d kept at it; hunched over her game sheets, concentrating fiercely while marking off numbers.

  A tiny voice inside Edna’s head pointed out that though she was undeniably a skilled and seasoned bingo player, the fact that all of her opponents were dead might have something to do with her long string of successes. This nasty little voice, which sounded not unlike her nagging (and thankfully deceased) husband Frank, irritated Edna. Winning was winning and fair was fair. Was it her fault zombies weren’t cut out for the fast-paced competitiveness of high-stakes bingo?

  The next game got underway. The caller, once a handsome young Creek Indian named Joe, began plucking numbered Ping-Pong balls from the big, Plexiglas hopper on the green-carpeted dais. Joe still wore the tattered remains of his cheap tuxedo outfit, though it was badly discolored and seemed to disappear in and out of his flesh in places. Joe’s gray face was beginning to look unsightly, Edna noted––like an ice-cream novelty left unattended in the sun––and he was having difficulty calling the numbers in an intelligible fashion. Some sounded as if he was speaking through a veil of rotted seaweed. To make matters worse, he also ate some of the Ping-Pong balls.

  Edna had prepared for this, however, positioning herself at a table close to the calling booth. Numbers garbled beyond recognition could usually be eyeballed before the little white spheres disappeared back into the hopper or Joe’s mouth.

  In an orderly row before her were the tools of the trade: ink daubers and paper playing sheets. Not long after the Reawakening, Edna had helped herself to several new ink daubers behind the now-deserted concession stand. The daubers were larger, gaily colored, and more expensive than those she had once played with. Her old dauber was squat and plain, and she had refilled it with tap water dyed with food coloring because Frank had strictly limited her playing money. The new daubers, used to mark pink, red, and purple circles on the throwaway paper sheets, were scented to smell like strawberries, cherries, and grapes. Edna didn’t mind when, hunched over the table, the sickly-sweet smell of the colored ink filled her nostrils; it almost blocked out the odor of her nearby opponents, who sat in dazed rows and shambled blindly along the aisles.

  Edna continued marking her sheets in a businesslike fashion, never missing a single number––the secret of winning (besides playing against zombies, the Frank-voice reminded). Towards four o’clock, her stomach began rumbling. How she wished she could hail a uniformed runner and order a burrito with the works and a large Pepsi! In the old days, during a typical eight-hour session, Edna might consume three burritos with hot sauce and sour cream, a cheeseburger, several bags of chips, a small dish of soft ice cream (chocolate and vanilla swirled together), and a legion of soft drinks.

  Now, with the food in the snack bar trampled and spoiled, she was forced to bring her own munchies: vacuum packs of beef jerky, vacuum-sealed cans of cheese curls, and scores of candy bars that wouldn’t go over––thanks to BTA and TBHQ, whatever they were––until October 2014. There was a sprawling Food King supermarket three blocks from the bingo hall, and until its shattered roof finished falling in, it served as Edna’s super-snack bar. Digging through her canvas tote bag, she extracted a Slim Jim and tore into it with her teeth. The taste was salty and greasy and wonderful, though not as satisfying as a deep-fried jumbo burrito with everything crammed inside.

  During the next pattern game, in which the winner was required to form a kite pattern, a zombie caromed off the back of Edna’s chair causing her marker to smear across the sheet.

  There! That had ruined i
t! And she had been only three numbers away from completing the tail of the kite and winning five thousand dollars. The big tradeoff with zombies, she fumed, was that though they were a cinch to beat at bingo (or any game, for that matter), they possessed the manners of… wild pigs. They might slump in quiet, swaying rows for hours, uttering hardly a moan, or they might knock about like mummies, overturning tables and making a general racket without so much as an apology if they disrupted a game! It was enough to heat the collar of the most patient, God-fearing soul, especially a dyed-in-the-wool bingo fanatic like Edna.

  After winning two more games––the “Round Robin” and “Crazy T”––in quick succession, Edna noticed twilight was stealing its way inside the huge hall. She immediately set down her dauber and reached below her chair.

  This time the tote bag produced a large silver flashlight. The light had been scavenged from the blackened hulk of the bingo security guard’s station wagon, a Ford Taurus, which now rested upside down in the hall parking lot. The long-necked light held six fat, D-size batteries in its gut, and was heavy enough to use as a club if the need arose. Its beam was strong and steady, like a prison searchlight.

  With shadows forming like fathomless pools inside the hall, Edna clicked it on and positioned it so she could read her cards and keep an eye on Joe. With nightfall the interior of the hall would quickly sink into an absolute blackness. Edna would need the light to continue playing and, at midnight, to make her way to an exit. Without its shepherding beam, she knew from experience, one might bump around for an eternity searching for the door.