by J. R. Rain
I grabbed the wad and faced what I knew was coming.
And there were a lot of them. More than I had anticipated. Worse, I didn’t see an opening through them.
Tommy’s cell phone rang.
I nearly shit my pants, but managed to hang on to it. I fumbled with it, swiping it on.
“Jesus, man. What’s taking you so long? The fuckers are everywhere. They’re banging on the glass.”
“I’m surrounded, too.”
“Well, figure a way through, dammit.”
“Easy for you to say,” I said, and stared at the closest zombie, who was now not more than twenty feet away and closing in fast. Well, kind of fast. There were others behind him. Dozens and dozens of others, and they formed a formidable wall of the undead. Very soon I was about to experience what it would be like to have something take a healthy bite out of me.
“Oh, fuck fuck fuck!” Yeah, that was me.
I ran to the other side. Of the tree. More undead. A wave of them, in fact, all lurching toward me, all gnashing their teeth, all with that bizarre light in their eye. I had a feeling that the last thing I would see on this earth were those fucking lights staring down at me, before I was consumed alive.
There had to be a way.
“Hurry, Billy!” screeched Tommy. “One of them just picked up a rock. Who knew zombies could problem solve!”
Why I still had Billy pressed to my ear, I didn’t know. Maybe I didn’t want to be left alone before I died. Maybe I wanted company. Maybe I had forgotten I was holding the phone because a wave of the undead was rolling toward me.
But I looked at it now.
And had an idea.
* * *
“If there’s an app to raise the dead,” I said. “Maybe there’s one that will send them back, too.”
“Yes, sure. Look for it. Geez. Why are you fucking telling me?”
And so I did...doing my best to figure out the damn iPhone...so different than my own Samsung. There. I was in the Apps store. Something grabbed my shoulder, chomping loudly in my ear, and I screamed like a girl. I did the only thing I could think of, I turned and punched it in the face with everything I had.
Turns out this had been someone’s little old grandma. She went down in a heap, but was soon picking herself up again.
I typed quickly in the app store search bar, fingers fumbling: “Return the undead.”
Nothing came up.
“Fuck.”
The sound of chomping filled the night air.
“Zombie reversal.”
And there it was. And it was from the same makers of the original app. Something powerful grabbed my shoulder, squeezing. I dropped and rolled and saw them above me, closing in. From the ground, I clicked “upload.”
It asked for a password.
“Oh, fuck! Tommy, what’s your password?”
“You need my password?”
“Yes, goddammit, I need your password!”
“Why do you need my password?”
“I’m downloading the reversal app, you idiot!”
“Good thinking.”
“Goddamit, tell me your password.”
“Um...”
“Tell me dammit!”
“It’s, ah, billysmomhassexylegs. All one word.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. And she does. Just ask anyone—”
“Nevermind that.”
A hand grabbed my ankle. Another grabbed my hair. I screamed as I finished typing in the password, even as I was lifted off the ground...and pulled toward the open mouth of a living skull.
And from the iPhone issued out a man’s voice. The same man’s voice we’d heard earlier, speaking the same unintelligible nonsense.
The skeleton lowered its face to mine, intending, I was certain, to take a bite from my cheek and forehead. And, indeed, I was looking deep into its ghost eyes, alight with hellfire.
But then the zombie paused.
In fact, the entire graveyard went silent. The gnashing teeth stopped. Hovering just inches above me, the light in the creature’s eye socket winked out.
And then I was dropped to the ground, where I witnessed the second strangest thing I’d ever seen. The zombies turned and returned to their graves. Whether or not these were the correct graves, I didn’t know. But I watched as one by one, they each stepped down into their respective pits and even had the common courtesy to rebury themselves.
“Sweet mother of God.”
* * *
We were in Tommy’s Ford Explorer.
The cemetery was quiet. We probably should have headed out of there as fast as we could, perhaps only stopping when we ran out of gas. But...the worst seemed to be over.
“Someone’s going to know something,” said Tommy. “All the grave sites will have freshly turned soil.”
“I suppose so.”
“I mean, word is going to get around that something happened here.”
I nodded. My upper arm still hurt where a skeleton had recently gripped me tightly. Had this hillside really been filled with the walking dead? “Am I dreaming?” I asked.
“No, brother. That shit was real, and I’m going to complain about that app, leave it a bad review or something.”
“It’s gone,” I said. I had been looking at Tommy’s phone a few minutes earlier.
“What do you mean it’s gone?”
“Both the summoning and reversal app are gone.”
We both thought about that, looking at the now-empty cemetery. The Ghost Tree swayed in a small wind.
“So what do we do?”
“Play dumb,” I said. “And never talk about it again.”
“I’m good at playing dumb,” said Tommy, and started his SUV.
I turned and looked at him. “And you’re never to look at my mom again, dammit.”
Tommy grinned and pointed the Explorer out of the cemetery. “Like that’s ever going to happen.”
The End
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Vampire Rain
The night is full of wonder.
The air is suffused with streaks of silver and flashes of light and incandescent marvels that few will ever see or know or even believe exist.
But it exists, and I have known such wonders of light for a long, long time. Centuries.
Too long.
It’s time to rest.
It’s time to move on.
I’m weary. Too weary.
Ah, the wind feels good on my skin. I’ve always loved the wind on my skin. My cold skin. My lifeless skin that is animate, too.
The cliff is a good idea. I’m happy to be here overlooking the sea, the jagged rocks, the sand that sparkles with phosphorescence from the tiny sea creatures that release their energy. My favorite place, and I have seen many, many places. In many, many lifetimes. But this is where I want to do it.
It is time.
Soon. Not yet. I will do it soon.
I’m scared.
Oh, God. I’m scared.
It is okay to be scared. It is natural to be scared.
It is time.
Did you think you would roam the earth forever? Did you not know this day would someday come? I heard that voice in my head again.
So scared. Of it. Of me.
Maybe I shouldn’t do this! I don’t have to do this. No one is forcing me to do this. I pushed down the fear with denial.
Okay, good, I feel better. I won’t do this after all. I won’t. I will go home to my dogs and run with them. They’ll wag their tails and I will find solace in their joy. In their pure love.
Aw, I love the wind. I love how it touches me and caresses and whistles in my ears like a bright song.
Good God, I’m tired. My legs are suddenly trembling.
Let me sit.
Better, better. Sitting now.
I have been tired a long, long time.
Too tired.
Look at the ocean, perpetually moving, constantly crashing, crumb
ling boulders into sand, and shorelines into oblivion. Its ebb and flow has always been mesmerizing to me. As if it is alive. And not. Like me.
I am like the ocean. Never resting, always moving, from place to place. I crash on this shore one year, and that shore, another year. I travel the face of the earth, always, perpetually, never ceasing, but always tired. Never able to truly rest.
Aw, it’s raining.
Yes, yes. That feels good. On my face, the back of my neck. Ha, even in my ears. I am refreshed by the rain that falls on me like cool tears from the weeping sky. I cannot tell if my tears are joining the rain that streaks down my face because my tears are just as cold as the rain.
The wind and rain and fog and sun and silvery moonlight, they know me.
The night knows me well, too.
But Death does not know me. Death has searched for me. Death has waited for me. Sometimes impatiently.
Trying to breathe deeply, trying to fill my lungs, always trying, centuries of trying, but never can I find that rich, full-bodied breath. Always, it eludes me. Always. Why can I never fully engorge my lungs with rich air?
Is it because I do not need it?
Yes, that must be it.
Air is not important to me. Something else keeps me alive. Something that has little to do with oxygen or natural laws.
So what is it? What possesses this ancient body of mine? I don’t know. Few of my kind do know. And those who do aren’t talking. But I know it is something dark. Something ancient. I do know this. I feel it living in me, a primeval entity, crawling inside my flesh like a keeper.
I am its host, and I live by its rules.
Aw, it’s raining harder. Hair is soaked. Feels good, feels good. Like a mantle of wetness cloaking me with coolness. Clothing soaked, too. Don’t care. Listen to it. So soothing, so peaceful. So gentle, so calm. Rain is serenity. It is sweeter than music.
I cannot go back to my dogs.
I cannot go back.
I cannot.
I cannot do this anymore.
The woman I killed last week. She had children. How, how could I do that to her? How could I take her away from her kids, her family, her life?
So many like her. Too many. I can’t do this. Not again. Ever. No more. Taken too much. Time to stop. Taking.
It is time.
Yes, it is time.
The rain, the fog, the moon, the wind, the ocean, the waves, the night. It is all so magnificent, so beautiful. But I am tired to the core. Even the primeval thing crawling inside of my skin, just under the surface, is tired. And quiet.
Too tired. Rare quiet.
The dogs will be taken care of. I’ve made sure of it. I have no one else, nothing else. No one will miss me or care that I’m gone. The world will be a better place. One less predator. One less killer. One less ungodly, unholy creature.
I need to be stopped.
It is time to end this and take my leave. I wonder what peace is and if it will come when I take my leave. And end this.
My body is eternally sick. Strong, but sick. Dead, but alive.
The rain, I will miss the rain. I will miss my dogs, too, but I will miss the rain most of all. The rain has been the one constant in every place I have ever been. The rain has been more of my home than any shelter. The rain was the one thing on which I could always count. The drops coming down to wash me, to renew me, to let me cry when it cried.
The stake in my own hand is heavy. It is a good, solid stake. Made of the finest silver. I made sure that it was without flaw.
I will not miss the sun. How do you miss something you do not see?
I will miss the wind, I think. Its music is a song of the earth.
No one will miss me. No one.
It is time to go.
I must do this thing. I have to. I cannot kill another human, another mother. Another animal. I cannot hurt another creature.
No more dead mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers.
No more killing.
It is time to end this taking.
Forever.
So what will happen to me? Where will I go? What will become of me?
I’m scared. So scared. I can’t do this. I can’t.
Oh, God.
Do it.
Please.
Do it.
The rain feels so nice, so nice. I love the rain. The patter and the pounding of it, the splashing of it speaks to me that I, too, will splash my offering into the Earth and let it drink. As I did.
I am a monster. But no more. No more.
I will miss the rain. Besides blood, it was my only drink. Rain.
I’m really doing this. Now!
Pull harder, both hands.
Harder.
The stake! It hurts!
I’m really doing this.
Oh, fuck.
Oh, fuck!
Harder. No. Yes!
Oh, sweet God, what am I doing?
Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit.
The light is coming, it is spreading, it is taking me inside the sparkling droplets of rain.
The rain, so nice.
So sweet...the rain.
The End
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They Came From the Sea
In the moonlight, the shapes splashing in Clyde Goodbook’s pool looked almost human.
Almost. But not quite.
It was just past 2:00 a.m., and Clyde was sitting in a deckchair on his upstairs balcony, drinking deeply from a steaming mug of coffee. As a cool wind shivered him to his bones, despite the blanket draped over his legs, he watched as a white-skinned female rose from the pool and stepped lithely onto the spring diving board. Her body was smooth and thin, her limbs unnaturally elongated. She had two small, bare breasts. Her bare breasts did nothing for Clyde.
After all, she wasn’t human.
The males, most lounging along the concrete edge of the pool, all watched her intently. They always watched each other intently. It was almost as if they were as fascinated by each other as Clyde was fascinated by them.
The female stepped out onto Clyde’s diving board, which looked like a wide stick of gum from where Clyde sat on his balcony. She paused briefly, and seemingly held the attention of all the other creatures. Then she jumped once, twice, and did a perfect swan dive into the deep end.
And why wouldn’t she do a perfect swan dive? After all, they came from the sea.
Clyde wished that just once he could stay awake for the whole night. Yet it never happened. He always eventually fell asleep, no matter how much No-Doz or caffeine flooded his blood stream; and awoke each morning in his deck chair to find the pool empty.
Now, as he did on this night each and every year, he watched the creatures silently...and alone. He had to watch them alone. He trusted no one with his secret. The moment word got out about these beings, he knew the world would descend on his Malibu home. And he didn’t want that. Not for him, and not for them.
Whatever they were.
So, he sat alone in the night, with only the outdoor floodlight and some mosquitoes keeping him company. He considered again the possibility of being the only human aware of these creatures. It was actually a considerable burden to live alone with the knowledge of their existence. He suspected there were others like him. Others who kept these creatures’ secret. Just like, perhaps, there were others keeping the Sasquatch secret. Or aliens. Or whatever. Clyde was well aware that just because someone had knowledge of the fantastic, they didn’t necessarily go around telling the world.
Some people, like him, liked to keep the fantastic for themselves.
He drank more of the coffee. The wind came stronger. The white-skinned creatures frolicking in his pool below didn’t seem to mind the wind. Hell, they didn’t seem to notice Clyde at all.
As if he didn’t exist.
Still, sometimes Clyde wondered how he would tell someone. How would that conversation go? He was sure it wouldn’t go well. Not for him, and not for them.
A secluded heaven on earth.
And he had succeeded. Perhaps far more than he had expected.
Shortly after the completion of his home, as his bestselling novels already replenished the funds he had used to build his dream house, Clyde had been drinking on his balcony, thinking up the next plot for his crime-solving dog, when they first appeared.
Dozens of them.
Walking up out of the ocean, gleaming white, nearly featureless. Definitely hairless. Like bipedal seals. But thinner, gangly. They moved awkwardly, as if unsure of their feet Or as if their limbs were not used to supporting their weight.
Clyde had immediately grabbed his house phone, had already pressed 9-1 and was just about to press the second “1” when something amazing happened:
They bounded over his fence. Not just jumping. But leaping effortlessly, gliding seemingly on the wind. He had never seen anything like it.
And it filled him with terror.
His finger was very, very close to jamming down on the “1” when something made him stop. Not only to stop but to set aside his phone...and to forget about it for the rest of the night.
The creatures piled into his pool, where they began, of all things to...frolic.
Yes, frolic.
Rather passionately.
Clyde watched from his balcony, stunned, horrified and a little ashamed, as he proceeded to watch the two dozen or so creatures, well, mate.
Right there in his own back yard.
Right there in his pool.
The mating, he would learn in subsequent years, was always quick and very passionate. The creatures bellowed in pleasure, arching their narrow backs. The female gripped the males with clawed, webbed hands, urging the males deeper and faster.
Soon, as had happened already tonight, Clyde’s pool was a heaving mass of white limbs and thrusting and heaving and clawing and arching.
That was usually when Clyde would begin drinking...and watching safely from his balcony.