by James Dean
“What’s yer problem?”
Ezekiel looked almost as confused as I likely did. “Did you?”
No, you stupid bastard. Just keep him talking.
The new voice spoke with authority and certainty, not like my normal questioning back and forth with myself—or even like the voice that had plagued me since Jeremy died. Had the voices I’d been hearing and the stress of my ordeal caused an actual psychotic break? I tried to remember back to my old psych classes in college, but I couldn’t think straight.
“So, if I follow your orders and move all the bodies, you’ll let me go?” I asked, stalling.
“That depends on a whole lotta things. First off though, we need to move them zom-bees that you brought with ya. It’ll take a few days to clear away their stink so’s the chickens will lay eggs again.”
“I don’t want to die.”
He placed his hand without the shotgun on his hip and leaned backward. “Well, all yer yappin’ sure ain’t helpin’ yer situation none.”
“I just want some assurances that if I do this for you, then you’ll let me go.”
“That’s all you want? You just want yer freedom? The Lord will provide for you, no matter what happens.”
“Yeah, I just—”
A flash of tan cut him off.
“Aaieee!” the old man screamed as a zombie—Jeremy!—bit deeply into his neck.
Blood fountained upward, staining the front of his coat red and he fired the shotgun blindly into the pit. The slug hit the frozen pile of rotting zombies with a thud.
Ezekiel gurgled as I scrambled up the sides of the pit, drowning in his own blood while Jeremy held him down and tore at his flesh.
My dead friend watched me run by, our eyes meeting for the briefest of moments. Mine were full of fear and his were dead, lifeless. He’d saved me once again like he had countless times before.
I sprinted as best I could through the snow to the farmhouse and secured the door behind me. I hoped Jeremy was too preoccupied with Ezekiel to have seen where I went. If he figured it out, I’d have to kill him before he drew a crowd.
I sank heavily into the chair I’d occupied at the dining table earlier. The plates and coffee cups were gone; the old man had made use of his time before he came outside to make his offer.
Then I remembered about the little girl in the basement.
I found the door hidden behind a large china cabinet on wheels. Once I rolled it out of the way, I went down the stairs cautiously, wishing I’d brought a flashlight or a candle—and regretting the fact that I didn’t have a weapon of any kind.
A shadow scuttled around the perimeter of the room.
“It’s okay, little girl. The old man is dead. Come out.”
“Liar!” a girl’s voice echoed from the darkness.
“He was killed by a zombie outside. He told me what he did to your parents, but I was able to escape before he could do the same thing to me.”
“Is he really gone?”
“Yes. I promise.”
“Pinky swear?”
“Uh, sure. Pinky swear.”
A small hand shot out of the darkness near my feet on the stairs. The little pinkie finger was stuck out while the rest were balled into a fist.
I sat down on the steps and took her pinkie in my own. “The old man is dead and I won’t hurt you,” I swore. “I was a teacher before all of this began.”
An unruly shock of dirty blonde hair came into the light. The girl was about six or seven, much too young to make a run through the deep snow if we were attacked.
“I’m Andrew. What’s your name?”
“Emily,” she replied. “Are my parents really dead?”
Don’t sugar-coat it, the authoritative voice in my head stated.
The voice was right. That was luxury that we no longer had in this world.
“Yes, Emily. They’re dead.”
She nodded her head and suppressed a sob. It took a moment for her to compose herself and then she said, “Alright, what are we going to do, Mr. Andrew?”
“We’re going to collect some eggs, make some toast and get you to eat something. Then we’ll think of a plan to leave this place.”
And you’ll figure out a way to keep Jeremy safe from other humans, the voice reminded me.
ABOUT BRIAN PARKER
A veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Brian Parker was born and raised as an Army brat. He’s currently an Active Duty Army soldier who enjoys spending time with his family, hiking, obstacle course racing, writing and watching Texas Longhorns football. He's an unashamed Star Wars fan, but prefers to disregard the entire Episode I and II debacle.
Brian is both a traditionally- and self-published author with an ever-growing collection of works across multiple genres, including sci-fi, post-apocalyptic, horror, paranormal thriller, military fiction, self-publishing how-to and even a children’s picture book—Zombie in the Basement, which he wrote to help children overcome the perceived stigma of being different than others.
He is also the founder of Muddy Boots Press, an independent publishing company that focuses on quality genre fiction over mass-produced books and he’s always on the lookout for talent.
Brian’s work is available in print and eBook on Amazon at the following link: www.amazon.com/Brian-Parker/e/B00DFD98YI
Facebook: www.facebook.com/BrianParkerAuthor
Twitter: twitter.com/BParker_Author
Web: www.BrianParkerAuthor.com
Muddy Boots Press: www.MuddyBootsPress.com
Hank and Miles
Joe Tremblay
On a hot June morning in a very small town, two mischievous men carefully devised a plan that would make them rich. They stood at the back of the line inside the Sovereign National Bank trying to appear like normal customers. The smaller man, Miles, had analyzed the interior for months. He knew the placement of all the cameras, he’d mapped the layout of the beige furniture and tables on the left and also the potential trip hazard of the blue Persian rugs laid throughout the lobby. He knew on Wednesdays there’d be no guard and no deliveries or pickups. All he had to do now was wait. Wait for the proper time to get it on as Hank liked to say. By all accounts, Hank Eastman and Miles Clarkwell seemed an unlikely pair, and how they’d exactly met, no one will ever know.
Miles stood in front of his taller associate and both men appeared to be nervous by the way their eyes shifted all throughout the room. The baby-faced man wore a crumpled, light brown suit and a pair of faded boat shoes. His glasses were thick enough that if he were to stare directly at the sun his face would instantly burst into flames. He kept his sweaty hands folded in front of him and he shifted his black, beady eyes to the pudgy teller in the florid dress standing four customers in front of him.
Hank, also known as the “town drunk,” and “stink bomb,” stood over six-feet in his shoddy, unlaced logging boots. Several of the patrons in the bank gave him a wary eye and plugged their noses as they passed him by. He wore a pair of stained blue jeans and a red flannel shirt that looked like it hadn’t seen the inside of a washer in years. His grease stained hands gripped his saggy stomach tight enough to send throbs of pain into his hungover brain.
“You sure this shits gonna wuurhk?” Hank asked as he scratched his beard and glanced up at the cameras in front of the tellers.
“I’ve told you exactly six times since the inception of my plan. Yes, Hank! Just do as I have explained to you over and over again for the past three months,” Miles whispered harshly.
“Don’t get fuckin’ lippy with me you little four-eyed peckah!” Hank growled.
Miles winced and breathed in slowly through his nostrils, held it and then exhaled sharply. He glanced at his watch. It read 9:31 am. He looked around the bank and spotted eleven people. An elderly couple in the front of his line, with two women in single file behind them. Over on the left, in the line next to him were two more women and a business man wearing a black suit who seemed to sigh with impatience every thirty seconds. The re
maining folk inside the bank were employees. Two tellers and a balding man who sat at his desk shuffling papers in the back. Miles wrangled his sweaty palms together and elbowed Hank.
“On three…” he whispered.
Hank reached down under his shirt and gripped the .38 revolver tucked into his pants and waited for his partner’s count. The big man gritted his teeth and curled his toes as he stared intently at the teller ahead of him.
“One,” Miles whispered.
Hank lifted the gun out and placed it in front of his abdomen. No one noticed.
“Two.”
The big man drew back the hammer and panted softly. As Miles worded the number three, there came a sudden thump from the front of the line followed by an old woman’s scream. Hank’s eyes were drawn to the view a fallen geriatric man laying very still on the hard marble floor. His correspondingly ancient wife stooped over him and shook the man while screaming, “George!” over and over.
“What now?” Hank asked his partner with a scoff. The small man sighed.
Miles raced to the collapsed senior not wanting to believe what was happening. Months and months of planning a bank robbery with every conceivable variable accounted for and now this… His mind raced with incredible speed outlining the plausibility of success given the most recent factor. All the patrons in the bank, with exception to the tellers, hovered around the fallen man. Surely the ambulance and police will be on the way he thought. His mind quickly shifted to the idea that the old couple had planned their own heist, but as he came upon the old lady wailing in grief at what appeared to be her husband’s corpse, he knew it was just bad timing.
Within minutes, Miles heard the wail of a distant ambulance. He turned and peered out the glass door. Many moments passed and the sirens closed in, however, in the instant the ambulance should have stopped, it instead sailed right by the bank. What the hell… he thought frantically. Seconds later, a police cruiser flew by the bank without stopping as well.
“What in the piss-fuck is happening right now? Them fuckahs forget where the bank is or what?” Hank spat out belligerently to everyone in the lobby and farted.
Miles turned back to the old woman who knelt over her fallen husband. She wept and clasped his face with her wrinkled hands, shaking his head slightly side to side. He could hear her begging him to get up and watched as her tears splashed onto his ashen cheeks. The others, hovering around, apparently not knowing what to do, all cupped their mouths and stared in shock.
Hank crept up next to Miles and bumped his arm. “Fuckah’s dead. Let’s get it on.” He whispered and brought up the revolver.
Miles rubbed his temples and looked up at the teller standing rigidly behind the glass staring down at the scene. Her eyes were widespread and became even wider when the patrons all gasped at once. The little man glanced down and watched in disbelief as the old, dead man moved his arms and gripped his wife. The old lady bellowed in joy and all the people clapped as they helped stand the man back up on his feet. The woman embraced her husband in a big hug, the people cheered louder. Miles looked at the gentleman’s white face and then into the old man’s blank, dead eyes and he felt a surge of dread rise up his spine.
“Something isn’t right here,” his voice trembled just above a whisper.
“Mon’ Miles! Let’s fuckin’ do it, they’re distracted!” Hank bellowed as he pushed people out of the way and got right up into the teller’s window.
Miles tried to stop him, but it was already too late.
“Everybody get on the floor!” Hank shouted as he shot a round into the ceiling. The sound of screaming invaded the quiet lobby and almost everyone dropped down. The elderly couple were the only ones left standing and the big man became enraged. “Get on the fucking floor!” he roared as he came before them.
He stood facing the old lady’s back and was just about to tug them down when something in the face of the elder man made him stop and tilt his head. The old man, devoid of emotion, opened his mouth and without any sign of trepidation, chewed into the old woman’s neck. Hank froze, but couldn’t stop watching. The elderly man bit with enough force to remove a walnut-sized chunk of skin, tendon and muscle clear off of his wife. Endless spurting blood splashed all over the dead man’s face, shirt, and the floor. The old lady wailed in agony and made Hank’s own neck start to ache. Her arms waved frantically for a few brief moments, but then dangled lifelessly at her sides. Her once earsplitting shrieks became inaudible gurgles as cherry-colored liquid spit out of her wide-open throat. Finally, she and her ravenous hubby fell to the ground where he bit and gnawed, again and again. Each time taking hunks of flesh clear off the woman’s mangled face. Hank’s heart dropped into his stomach and his legs wobbled in newfound weakness. He turned back toward his friend Miles looking for answers, but instead he watched as his friend’s face drained of all color.
The mind of Miles Clarkwell drifted into the realm of impossibility. He’d just witnessed, right alongside everyone else, what appeared to be a dead man’s body coming back to life and eating its wife’s face. He looked around the bank, and though his state of shock didn’t allow for him to hear any sound at that moment, he could hear panic and anguish, just by sight alone. The entire room was spinning with flailing, open-mouthed people falling over each other in an effort to claw their way out of the bank. His friend Hank stood before him in a state of complete stupefaction. Think Miles Think! his mind commanded him. When his hearing returned, the auditory cataclysm of events hammered deep into his skull. He knew he needed to get him and his friend out of there fast.
“HANK!”
Hank heard his friend shout his name. He blinked, breathed and steadied his grip on the revolver. Miles shouted his name again and again while waving toward the door trying to signal that they should leave the bank. The big man felt something tug on his pant leg and looked down. Staring up at him was the gore-smeared face of the old man who’d just eaten his wife to death. The dead man’s fingers pressed into Hank’s calf muscle sending sharp pains up the back of his thigh. Shoot him! Shoot him! Mile’s voice echoed distantly from behind. Hank aimed the pistol at the man’s skull and squeezed the trigger. The corpse dropped and the big man shook his leg free from its death grip. An invigorating jolt of adrenaline coursed through his body and he suddenly became super aware. He turned back to his friend Miles.
“Let’s get it on!” Hank cried with shining eyes and bright, red cheeks.
Hank rushed the counter and grabbed a wad of cash lying atop it and stuffed it into his pocket. When he turned back to face his friend, he noticed only the two of them were left inside the bank. He then noticed from the corner of his eye, the corpse of the faceless women twitching and slowly starting to rise. He didn’t waste a moment and shot her in the head too, and then bellowed in joy.
Miles couldn’t stand to see his friend fall so quickly into the glee of insanity. He turned and started toward the door as hurriedly and quietly as he could. There wasn’t any reason for him to worry about Hank and the potential threat he’d become. He realized he had to get to a safe spot if what he thought was happening was indeed happening. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the whole world was in ruins and he’d have very few options to choose from then. As he exited the bank and walked into the outside world, he felt the weight of reality slug him hard in the jaw. The blinding summer sun shred its beams unreceptively into his eyes while the heat put his body’s cooling system to work immediately. Mile’s first dilemma became the traffic. The bank was positioned off the main road in the center of town and generally the number of cars were slim this time of day, but apparently the problem in the bank was happening all over because both lanes were jam packed. Horns blared, people screamed and a few gun shots rang from some of the trucks. The overwhelmed Mr. Clarkwell didn’t have any solution on how he was going to get where he wanted to go. Then he heard Hank bust out of the front door behind him.
“Holy fuckin’ hell. This is fucking awesome!” Hank shouted as he came to
stand next to Miles. “Looks like the whole town is up shit’s creek, yut.”
“Indeed. Do you know where you’re headed?” Miles asked never taking his eyes off the commotion in the street.
“You mean, where we’re headed, buddy. I sure do, c’mon let’s get in my truck.”
Fuck, Miles thought.
Unable to conclude a better plan, the strange man got into his crazy friend’s black pickup truck feeling defeated and vastly unprepared. “Where are we going Hank?”
Hank threw the gun between his legs and reached into his pocket where he found $330 from the bank. He smiled and shoved the cash into his wallet then lit a cigarette and started the truck. He looked over at his little buddy and smiled. “We’re going to my hunting cabin. Up there on Auburn Lake.”
“Is there food? Is there cell service? Is there power? I’d like to know what’s going on,” Miles asked as he turned radio on.
“Don’t you worry yourself little missy. I got guns, bows, and a shit ton of porn mags. We’ll lay low until this shit calms the fuck down. What the fuck you think it is anyway, some dawn of the living dead or what?”
“Dawn of the Dead, you imbecile. It’s Dawn of the Dead. From what I saw and what I see, yes. It’s the end of the world. Now please, let me listen to the radio and you just get us there. Stop for food too, please.”
“Good thing this bitch goes off-roading! Let’s fucking get it on, buddy!” Hank laughed when he heard the emergency broadcast then revved his engine and honked maniacally at the frustrated people stuck on the road.
Miles sighed. He didn’t know what was worse, the end of the world, or the end of the world with Hank…
*****
Summer passed, and Thanksgiving was nigh.
The moon floated high in the sky and the stars grinned radiantly down into the small thicket where Miles and Hank huddled over a small campfire. The two men sat across from each other just outside of Hank’s small dilapidated cabin and each hung their stiff, cold hands over the heat of the flames.