Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 3

by Anthology

  “We volunteered, Hugh,” said another. “It don’t do no good to complain.”

  “We didn’t volunteer for this, Carl,” Hugh insisted.

  “Stop your whining and shovel,” Carl said, lifting the handles of a broke-down wheelbarrow full of bad earth and turning away with it. “Whining ain’t fitting a man, neither.”

  “Carl’s right,” said the third. “Volunteer firemen are in for it, no matter the calamity. You signed up as a volunteer fireman, you volunteered for this. So here you are. It’s for the good of the town… ’Course, it sure is nasty,” he added, peering into the dank hole before him… mostly empty, but not quite.

  “I guess, but it strikes me this here’s a bit above and beyond the call of duty, or what have you,” said Hugh. “You’ll change your tune if you fall in there, Ted,” he said.

  The fourth man, the groundskeeper, returned from his trip to the storage shed, pulling an empty cart behind him. “That was Mr. Wilbur Collins I just stored. Wiped off the name plate,” he said. “The newer boxes all have ‘em.”

  “Never did like Old Man Collins,” said Hugh. “Shot me with rock salt once for cutting across his north pasture.”

  “How many we got in there now, Mike?” Carl asked.

  Mike let go of the cart and wiped his brow with a gloved hand. “So far there’s eleven… and some spare… odds and ends. Phew! For late September it sure is hot.” He looked sick and pale.

  “Eleven,” said Ted, turning away from the open grave only to face another. Carefully, he picked his way back to clear ground. “That means,” he continued once safe, “there’s a good… well…”

  “The chart says ninety-two,” Mike said, rummaging in his overalls for a battered sheaf of papers. “Yep, ninety-two. But to be honest, this one hain’t been updated in some time. The new chart, I’m afraid it was warshed away. Can’t say as I can recollect all the names, seeing as I just took the post six months ago, but there’s probably a few dozen more than what we see here.”

  “Jesus wept,” groaned Ted.

  “With all the stones strewn about, we got our work cut out for us,” Mike agreed.

  Hugh thumped Mike on the back, grinning. “Ain’t you glad you got the job when you did?”

  “Pineville’s a small town, thank God for that,” said Carl. “It could’ve been worse.”

  ~

  Around three they rested on a log at the far end of the cemetery, carefully checking before they sat to make sure there weren’t any surprises lying nearby.

  “Looking at it from this vantage point, I think I’m gonna cry,” said Ted. “I don’t wanna go back there.”

  From where they sat it became apparent just how little their day’s work had achieved. One corner of the yard was mostly clear, tombstones neatly stacked against the low stone wall, nothing else in sight but a long hole every now and again or a bulge in the matted grass signifying a risen coffin the waters hadn’t entirely freed.

  The rest of the yard, sixteen square acres, was a charnel garden. Tombstones lay strewn about, some face down, some face up, some cracked, some broken, some sticking in the earth by a corner after being tossed end over end by the current. Only a few of the heavier, expensive granite stones remained mounted and upright. In almost all cases the remains they memorialized were no longer where they belonged.

  It was an old cemetery, some coffins planted so long ago there was nothing left to float, but Pineville had also been gifted with several generations of skilled casket makers who knew how to prolong disintegration and fit boards tight together; thus, many had risen when the waters called, only breaking open when those same waters currented them into trees, tombstones, rocks and each other. Scores of broken wood caskets littered the yard, along with their long-hidden contents that turned the stomach and watered the eyes… some still under lids, others strewn across the muck. Friends, family, and ancestors society had long ago accepted as lost had now returned, but they were not wanted.

  “If only everything wasn’t so damp,” said Ted. “A little sun, a little heat––”

  “Heat would only make it worse.” Carl sniffed.

  “But at least it would make everything less… less dead. I hate autumn. Cold mists, colder rains, and never enough sun. It’s the sun I need more than anything. Besides, we won’t be able to rebury any of these folk until the ground dries. We should pray for sun.”

  “Prayer is good, I won’t argue none with that, but we should pray for strength more than sun,” Mike said, “and hurry up and get on with our job before what strength we got left gives out.” He stood, stretched, and trudged slowly back to his cart.

  The others, equally slowly, followed.

  “What we should pray for is a miracle,” muttered Hugh, bringing up the rear. “Something involving me never having to see anything like this ever again.”

  ~

  By sundown the shed––formerly used for storing shovels, spades, hoes, rakes, bags of peat and wheelbarrows––stored three-dozen occupied coffins, and the remains of a dozen and a half Pineville citizens without; the latter were securely tied up in burlap sacks. Outside, four stacks of tombstones lay in front of the shed, which were to be sorted through and restored to their proper places later.

  “Another two days should do it for the gathering,” Carl said. “Then we can help Mike here with the sorting and put everybody back proper who can be put back.”

  The night was clear but moonless, the wind gentle but cool. They slept in Mike’s cottage on the hill next to the shed, setting up two-hour shifts to guard the cemetery from animals that might worry the exposed remains. Mike lent out his rifle for the purpose, along with an oil lamp so no one would take any bad steps in the dark.

  Carl picked the short straw and kept watch first. He walked the grounds carefully, handkerchief tied tight around his face, trying not to think. For two hours his only excitement was chasing a red fox away from what was left of Abigail Wilson. At two he gave Ted a kick in the leg and turned in.

  Ted didn’t go through the graveyard, just circled around it. He didn’t want to stumble over any gaping holes in the dark, didn’t even want to risk it, so he kept to the perimeter, scaring off rats and raccoons then stumbling over, not a hole, but a wooden coffin that gave way as his boot pressed down.

  Forty-five minutes later, still wiping his heel on the grass, he shambled, muttering, back to the house and woke Hugh.

  Hugh chose sitting rather than walking, and parked himself on Mike’s porch swing for guard duty. It was in pretty poor shape, the weatherworn wooden seat hanging from rusted chains that looked ready to break, but it felt good to sit, and everything held. In fact, it felt so good that after a while, probably not more than a couple of minutes, he drifted off into uneasy sleep.

  He dreamt fitfully of mildewed linen, dank holes, and the sighing of fretting winds through dark tree boughs. The sound conjured images of waving doors that shouldn’t be open; clattering attic shutters in abandoned mansions; cold, wet-ashed chimney flues… and after a time it grew louder, more distinct and insistent, until with a start and a cry he awoke.

  But the sound did not cease.

  “What’s that?” he hissed, then clapped a hand over his mouth. “What is that?” he hissed again through white fingers. He looked back toward the front door and the black inside space beyond. Silence there, save for snores.

  “Christ Almighty, that ain’t them, he said, and fumbled for the dark lantern. “Gonna see,” he said. “Gonna see what that goddamned sound is.”

  But he couldn’t bring himself to strike a match.

  The sound was like a tide, cries washing over voices, voices demanding answers. The sound was faint but resonated with the power of a multitude. Over the voices came the tread of feet on grass and leaves, the knocking of knuckles against wood, the ripping of fabric with fingernails.

  “Lord a’ mercy.” The words could have been Hugh’s but were not. They came from behind him. He spun like a top, arms raised to fend off or
strike.

  Carl grabbed him. “Now, now, it’s just us.” Mike and Ted stood beside him in the dark, holding their breath.

  Together they stood on the porch and listened.

  “It’s coming from the bone yard,” Mike whispered.

  “Some of the kids from town come back to cause trouble?” Ted whispered.

  “Hell no,” Carl said. “No one would cause trouble with that.” His shadow nodded toward the cratered lawn.

  Mike took a deep breath and said, “Come on now, let’s not get panicked. It’s my job to see this property’s residents are kept safe. I’m turning on a lamp.” He fumbled with a match. Yellow flame sprang up, touched an oiled rope. The lantern glowed.

  Hugh gasped. Ted shut his eyes tight. Carl grabbed the rifle from Hugh’s hand.

  Mike raised the lantern.

  The noise rose for a moment, then, protesting, faded quickly and completely away.

  Nothing moved in the cemetery but rats and leaves.

  Even so, no one caught a wink the rest of that long night.

  ~

  “Well, I’d say something looks different.”

  Everyone looked at Mike, who was surveying the cemetery, hands on hips and nodding slowly. “It don’t look as messy today.”

  “That’s cause we worked our behinds off yesterday,” said Hugh. “Now my first order of business is to get that damned pine tree to give up her goods. It just don’t look right, that thing all the way up in a tree.” Shouldering a coil of rope, he walked over to the spruce planted in the middle of the lot and looked up into its cover, where the glint of a brass handle betrayed the presence of a coffin lodged between two branches some eight feet off the ground.

  “I’d better help him,” said Carl, following. “If the damn thing drops sudden it’ll probably land on his head.”

  “Bag duty for me,” said Ted, holding up a pile of burlap sacks with a grimace. “Gonna go in the woods and search for strays. Feel free to trade whenever you feel inclined.”

  “Gonna try and start matching pieces together, one stone to one coffin, one coffin to one body,” Mike said, and went off to the shed.

  The sun was bright and warm, good for drying out the earth but bad for what needed to be re-interred beneath it. They found their cologne-soaked handkerchiefs, tied them in place, and the work went on. There was no talk about the previous night.

  Not until noon did something happened to put everything else on hold for a time.

  It was Ted, out in the woods, who picked up on it first, and when he did he came running out from among the trees, waving his arms and ringing his hands. Everyone stopped and stared, and when he got close he called out, “There’s a child in there! I can hear her crying!”

  The search began immediately.

  “No way anyone’s in here,” said Mike, turning to Ted as they picked their way among the trees. “You sure it wasn’t a barn owl? They sound kinda like tikes when they’re riled.”

  “Hey now, I know what I heard,” Ted replied.

  “It don’t make no sense. The nearest farm––”

  He was cut off by a wail the likes of which none of them had ever heard. It came from farther in the forest, but not too far, and worked its way into their bones until their footsteps slowed and they all grew still. It started high and ended low, but not low enough for an adult, and there could be no doubt it was a person. Ted was right. It sounded like a child, hurt and terrified.

  “My God, that was it, that was the sound,” Ted whispered, grasping Carl’s arm.

  “Leggo,” Carl hissed. “Someone needs help.” But for a long moment all they could do was stand in place looking toward the thickening cluster of pines that stood before them, and Ted held on.

  The silence was deathly.

  Then the cry went up again, the desolate wail of someone utterly lost and alone. “Mama!” that someone called. “Mama.”

  It was Hugh, of all people, who was stirred into action by the sound. He was a father and knew that call of duty when he heard it. “Come on now,” he said, and trotted off toward the noise. As if waking from a dream, Carl tore free of Ted’s grasp and followed Hugh. Mike and Ted kept pace behind him.

  Hugh moved rapidly, trying to pinpoint the location of the sound before it died away again. He pushed through the dead lower branches of some pine trees just as the wail was fading away, and arrived at the source of the sound before the last echo died.

  There could be no doubt who had made it. The sound had led them to her, and they had found her.

  The little girl in the faded pink dress lay in a shallow mud puddle in the shade of the trees, but there was no need to help her up. She had been dead for a long, long time. The skin of her face stretched tightly over her skull, dehydrated and tanned by long years underground. Her long, blond hair rested in dusty, disintegrating braids across her chest. Her hands were clusters of brittle white twigs. Her hollow eye sockets stared vacantly.

  Around her lay the shattered remains of a small, white coffin.

  Hugh let loose a yell that sent blackbirds flying off in fright. Mike and Ted simultaneously turned and were sick. Carl leaned against a tree, swallowed his risen gorge, and shut his eyes. When he opened them again he looked up, and said, “The waters took her all this way. Guess it would be a good turn to take her back. Guess that’s what she wants.”

  Like a funeral procession they filed slowly through the woods and back to the sun-struck graveyard, a small bundle in burlap carried between Carl and Mike. After depositing the bundle in the shed they went quickly back to Mike’s house, trudged inside, and worked no more that day.

  Later that night before they fell asleep in front of a cheery, popping hearth fire. Hugh snuck over to the door and latched it tight.

  No one asked where he had gone when he came back.

  ~

  By morning they had collected themselves enough to return to work, and for the next three days they labored diligently, ignoring flitting shadows and sheltering themselves at night by laughing too hard at jokes and sticking cotton in their ears when they slept. Although they remained on the property out of a sense of duty, they didn’t keep watch on the grounds after dusk anymore.

  They made fine progress. Soon all the “litter” was gone from the grounds and Mike began making a great many identifications, due in part to his own detective work, but mainly to a somewhat disturbing discovery he made one bright morning: during the night, someone had used a sharp stone, branch, or (here Mike shuddered, thinking of it) fingernail to scratch names onto all the coffins, and mud to write names on all the burlap sacks. Despite the issues this raised, it helped a great deal, and the four men figured that no matter how it had come to happen, the act was a gift.

  One afternoon, after the reburials had begun in earnest, Carl was touching up a hole when he saw Mike sitting off by himself on a rock at the edge of the yard.

  “Everything dandy?” Carl asked, but was taken aback by Mike’s appearance. He looked sicker than any man he had ever seen. There was sweat on his forehead and upper lip, but Carl could tell it wasn’t the good sweat of work, but the kind that comes with brain fever. He looked so pale the light seemed almost to shine through him, and his breathing was labored and loud.

  “Lord a’ mercy,” Carl said, and put his hand out to touch Mike’s shoulder. Mike shied away, and Carl withdrew with a raised eyebrow and a frown.

  “You look sick, Mike. I don’t know what to make of it, but I think you’d best get inside and lie down.”

  “I ain’t sick sick,” said Mike. “To be honest, right now I just want out of here for a bit. I want this over. I need time away.”

  “Well why don’t you go, then?” Carl asked gently. “You’ve worked damn hard. No one can say different.”

  “Because if I leave now this job is history, and I need it bad. What with the Depression on and a score’s score of people ready to take over if I up and run, I’d be a crazy to walk away.”

  “Depression?” Carl sa
id. “I don’t follow.”

  Mike gazed at him long and hard, then motioned for him to sit down beside him. This time he didn’t shy away.

  “I found something ‘bout an hour ago,” Mike said.

  “Yeah?” said Carl.

  “I found the updated chart of the cemetery.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Carl.

  “Just sittin’ there right as rain, a little stained but still readable, right on top of my desk like it had been there all along.” He pulled out a folded sheaf of papers from the front pocket of his overalls. “Here it is.”

  “Well that’s fine, Mike, just fine. Now we can know for certain if we’re missing anybody. But I don’t see––”

  “It’d please me if you took a gander at it. ‘Specially the bottom of the second page.”

  Carl took the list, flipped to the second page, scanned it, and stopped short.

  He breathed in and out, long and deep.

  “My, oh my,” he said.

  Mike swayed beside him, mopping his wet brow.

  “Oh my,” Carl continued. “Oh my, oh my.”

  ~

  “What you need, Carl?” Ted asked. Several hours had passed. Carl had taken some time to collect himself, then gathered everyone together on Mike’s front porch.

  “Ted, Hugh, I got a question for the both of you. Before this job, what’s the last thing you remember?”

  Hugh snorted. “You drunk, Carl?”

  “I just wanna know.”

  “Well… I…” He trailed off. “It’s kind of hazy, now that you mention it.”