Ginger leapt from the car toward an infected female. She grabbed on to its tattered clothes and climbed up to its shoulder. This gave Ginger a better look at the house. She pointed with her little hand to a blue house at the end of the street. “We will start at that house. Once we are done, we’ll move on to the next one,” she said.
Like soldiers in an army, the infected listened to the gingerbread cookie. They needed leadership to continue spreading their zombie virus, and Ginger was it.
* * *
Katie Long was only seven years old when her parents were murdered by zombies. She didn’t actually see it happen, but when her father said he was going out for supplies, then her mom saying that she was going to out to look for her dad, she knew that neither one of them was going to come back. Katie spent the next few days crying until she met a gingerbread cookie by the name of Pepper.
Pepper was wandering the streets, looking for a place to go. The Normals that baked him were killed by the infected only a few days after he came back to life. In his few days of life, he fell in love with his Normal family, mostly because they didn’t eat him. Since the zombies don’t really understand why there are living gingerbread cookies, they don’t see them as a threat. Pepper has been itching for a chance to get back at the zombies and when he heard Katie crying, he found his opening.
The two quickly became best friends, and played all sorts of games. Slowly, Pepper began revealing his plan to get back at the infected. He knew where to find more magical dough, and his plan was to create an army of gingerbread cookies.
It was now Christmas Day, and the entire house was filled with living gingerbread cookies.
“Pepper,” Katie said, trying to move around some of the cookies. She spotted Pepper, sharpening a candy cane to a point.
“Katie,” he said with a smile.
“Me and a couple of the other cookies are going to play hide and go seek. Do you wanna play?”
Pepper tested the candy cane point with his hand and felt the sharpness. It was sharp enough to puncture a hole in a zombies head and destroy the brain. He placed the cane with the other weapons and looked at Katie. She wore her one piece Christmas pajamas with a candy cane across the chest.
“So, do you?” she asked again.
“Yeah, that sounds like fun.”
* * *
“You five go around from the back,” Ginger said, giving orders and pointing. “Now you five go into that window over there. The rest of us will knock down the door.”
The zombies did as they were told. The window broke without a hitch and they climbed right up. The zombies at the front door had it broken in under a few minutes. They walked inside and began searching every inch of the house. There was no sign of any Normals hiding.
When Ginger was satisfied, she ordered them to meet in the front yard. Some of the zombies fell many times as they tried walking in the thick snow. They moved on to the next house on the street.
They didn’t find any Normals in that house, but they did find a few more zombies trapped in a bedroom. Ginger welcomed them into her army of dedicated infected.
Slowly, Ginger’s army grew bigger and bigger.
They moved on to the next house and bingo, they found a family of five hiding inside a bathroom. The Normals put up a fight, managing to destroy three of Ginger’s troops. But the army of undead was just too massive for them to survive. The zombies in the front got to eat as much flesh as possible before Ginger made them stop. Not too long after, the Normals had reawakened and replaced the destroyed infected in Ginger’s army.
They moved on to the next house.
* * *
“Pepper! Pepper!” two gingerbread cookies yelled as they came running into the house. “Pepper!”
Katie jumped out of her hiding spot. “What’s happening?” she asked.
The two gingerbread cookies continued to run passed her. They needed to find Pepper fast.
Pepper watched the two gingerbread cookies from his hiding spot. He was dangling from the ceiling fan, using a candy cane for a hook. He let go and came crashing down onto a soft pillow. “What’s happening?”
“Sir, we have news from the roof. There is a large group of crazy people coming closer to the house. They are stopping in each house and breaking in,” one of the cookies said.
“Sound the alarms,” Pepper said.
“There’s one more thing,” the other cookie said, panting.
“Spit it out already.”
“There’s a cookie on the shoulder of one of them. It kind of looks like she’s giving them orders.”
* * *
“Come on, hurry up!” Ginger yelled from the shoulder of the zombie she named Duty. With the way the zombies were moving, it would take Ginger decades to invade every home in the United States.
One of the zombie’s moaned starting a chain reaction of noise. Slowly, they began to wander away from the massive army of living dead.
“Where are you guys going?” Ginger asked, but was ignored.
Duty turned toward the zombies that were walking away from them. She began to follow.
Ginger’s ears began to twitch. She finally understood why the zombies were breaking off the main group and walking toward a large white two-story house.
“Normals,” Ginger muttered as Duty continued walking.
The rest of the army of zombies turned and followed the herd.
* * *
“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Katie yelled as the gingerbread cookies continued to run around her, grabbing their weapons and fortifying the house.
Pepper ran up to Katie and said, “Shhh. Quiet down. We can’t let them know we’re in here.”
“Are the scary people coming?” she asked.
Pepper nodded.
Katie ran into the kitchen and grabbed a sauce pan. She put it on her head like a helmet and grabbed an iron skillet. She ran back into the living room, passing Pepper and running to the top of the stairs.
That was the normal drill procedure. If their house was ever attacked by zombies, Katie was to grab her weapons and head for the top of the stairs. The rest of the army of gingerbread cookies would protect her at all costs. They loved Katie, and she loved all of them.
As Katie stood at the top of the stairs, they heard the first moan followed by a bang at the door. The gingerbread cookies pressed as much furniture to the door as possible.
Pepper ran to the top of the stairs and jumped out of an open window. He used the house gutters to climb to the roof where there was a group of twenty gingerbread cookies waiting for orders. Pepper peered over the side of the room to the lawn below. His mouth dropped as he saw about a hundred zombies. All of them heading for the front door.
“First wave, go!”
* * *
Boiling hot chocolate fell from the roof to the zombies below. The chocolate acted as somewhat of an acid and began to boil the undeads’ scalp away. Once the acid reached their brains’ they fell to the ground.
“Keep moving forward,” Ginger yelled.
More zombies walked toward the front door and met the same fate.
Ginger glanced toward the roof only to see Pepper standing on the ledge.
“Move away from the door and break the windows.”
The zombies backed away from the acid rain and headed for the large window. They began banging on it with their hands.
“Break through!” Ginger yelled.
* * *
“Hurry! Move the pot!” Pepper yelled.
The gingerbread cookies who were working the pot began moving it toward the window. But as they did, they heard a voice yelled, “Now you over there, head for the door!”
It was then that Pepper realized that one pot of acid hot chocolate was not going to cut it. He ordered the gingerbread cookies to put the rest of it down and head inside the house.
Pepper ran back to the gutter and climbed down back into the house. Katie was sitting down with her legs crossed. The gingerbread coo
kies below were trying desperately to keep the zombies out. Pepper turned as the gingerbread cookies that were on the roof climbed in through the window.
“Fighting positions, everyone,” he said as he ran toward Katie.
“How many are out there?” she asked.
“Too many, but don’t worry. We’ll protect you.” As Pepper said that, the large window in the living room shattered into a million pieces.
* * *
“The window is broken, climb in but don’t engage. Get that door open!” Ginger yelled as she motioned for Duty to come closer to the door.
The zombies moaned and continued banging on the door, slowly cracking the hinges. It didn’t take long before the door gave and the zombies pushed their way in.
Once inside the house the zombies stood by the door and waited for Ginger. She came in not too long after.
* * *
The gingerbread army inside the house waited for the zombies to make the first move.
“Get out of here!” Katie yelled from the top of the stairs.
Some of the zombies looked toward the noise and became antsy.
“Quiet, Katie,” Pepper whispered.
“No,” she said then looked toward the zombies. “This is my house and I don’t want you in here! If you don’t get out of here, my friends will kill all of you!” she yelled.
The gingerbread cookie standing on the shoulders of a zombie looked up and stared at Katie. A Normal, she thought. “My name is Ginger,” she said, “these are your friends? Well these are my friends and we are going to eat all of yours and turn you into one of us.”
Ginger motioned for the zombies to begin the attack.
Pepper yelled, “Attack!”
The gingerbread cookies yelled a war cry and ran toward the zombies. The first wave of cookies ran up to a zombie dressed as a mailman and climbed up its clothes ‘til they reach the top of his head. One of the cookies placed the point of a candy cane on top of its head while the other cookie stomped down on it. The candy cane went through the skin, puncturing the skull and entering the brain. The zombie took one last swipe at the cookies on its head before falling to the ground. Blood leaked out of the pencil sized hole on the zombies head.
More cookies continued to climb up the zombies’ clothes and used the same method to bring them down.
“Flyers, now!” Pepper yelled.
Cookies began to climb up the stair railings. Rope was tied to the ceiling. They swung from the second floor like Tarzan toward the group of zombies that were coming in through the door. They had their candy cane weapons in one hand while the other was on the rope. They let go at the right time and flew through the air stabbing at the zombies’ heads.
“Eat the cookies!” Ginger yelled.
The zombies swooped at the ground grabbing cookies in their grasps. Raising their hands up to their mouths, they used their teeth to snap them in half. The gingerbread cookies died instantly.
Ginger laughed as the first cookie died. She climbed off Duty and ran into the mass of cookies. She hopped and pinned one to the ground taking larges bites out of the cookies’ neck. Warm dough began to leak out of the cookies’ wound. Ginger hopped off of the cookie and ran after another one. A moment later, the cookie Ginger had bitten stood and began attacking the other cookies along with Ginger.
“Oh no,” Pepper said. “Take the infected cookies down!”
The next wave of cookies ran up with their lolly-pop mallets and began smashing the infected cookies faces in. Crumbs flew from their heads like confetti. More zombies began to flood into the living room.
“We have to get you out of here,” Pepper said to Katie. “There’s just too many of them.”
Katie ran to her room out of sight and hid under the bed.
Pepper stood on top of the stairs, his eyes locked on Ginger. He climbed up the stair railings with his candy cane weapon in hand. Ginger was in view. He leaped off the stairs freefalling toward Ginger.
To be Continued…
The Last Noel
By Craig W. Chenery
To my Wife, Tera.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, at the graves downtown,
Where a strange chemical, had spilled on the ground.
It seeped in the mud to the graves six feet deep,
Where the bodies of the dead awakened from sleep.
Up from the ground zombies crawled into sight,
Their screams and moans rang loud in the night.
It didn’t take long for the virus to spread,
And those who were bitten would soon join the dead.
People died quickly and the zombie horde grew,
As they bit through skin, flesh, bone and sinew.
They tore through the town in a bloodthirsty spree,
While parents were putting their gifts by the tree.
The festive families were caught unaware,
As they readied for Christmas without a care.
But the zombies swarmed in and the Christmas tree fell,
As they tried to fight off this image from hell.
Little Timmy awoke as he heard a loud clatter,
With hopes to find toys, not brains and blood splatter.
Looking for stockings filled with Skittles and Reese’s,
But instead finding his parents all torn into pieces
Poor little Timmy, with good grades on his card,
Was now fucked up for life, and emotionally scarred.
He turned back and ran to hide under his bed,
His parent's bloody screams danced in his head
He screwed up his eyes as the dead climbed the stairs,
Poor Timmy he cried as he shouted his prayers.
The zombies came in and Timmy was caught,
He kicked and he screamed and so desperately fought.
But he was no match for this terrible death,
And hugged on to teddy and drew his last breath.
He wouldn’t survive to get gifts Christmas morn,
If you think this night was bad, just wait for the dawn.
Zombie Don’t Pop
By Rusty Fischer
I’d never liked parties
At the end of the year;
Since it meant back-to-school time
Was drawing more near.
But this year was different
As the clock did ding-dong;
And out of the graveyard
Bodies soon were long gone.
They roved and they wandered
As midnight drew near;
It was clear they were shuffling
Why, right over… here!
The dead had arisen
From their burial plots;
I’d say there were dozens
I’d say there were lots!
Their movements were jerky
Their feet they did scrape;
But the street was too crowded
To make my escape.
Our party was outside
As the confetti flew;
And the revelers shouted
As the party it grew.
The whole street was blotto’d
Quite high off of champagne;
As the zombies grew closer
Inflicting their pain.
They chomped on the grown-ups
And then every kid;
It wouldn’t be nice
To describe what they did!
But maybe I’ll try
To give you a taste;
Of what happens when
Some zombies laid waste.
They cracked open noggins
And scooped the brains up;
And then on their torsos
They started to sup!
They chomped on their shin bones
And nibbled their toes;
As blood spewed all over
Like H20 from a hose.
The street grew quite bloody
Yes it was soon red;
As all of my neighbors
&nbs
p; Grew terribly dead.
And there I stood trembling
As the zombies approached;
Yes on our street party
The dead did encroach.
I could find no weapon
To fight the horde off;
As I started to cry,
To sputter and cough.
And as 20 zombies
Reached in for a bite;
I grabbed for the first thing
That came into sight.
The cork popped right open
And knocked three dead down;
As the rest of them stood there
And started to frown.
I looked to my left
And then to my right;
Thank God they’d attacked
On New Year’s Eve night!
My back to the bar
I’d stumbled upon;
A case of champagne
That wasnw RoCrt quite gone.
I handed the bottle
To the first zombie in line;
She tipped it into her mouth
And thought it… quite fine!
She sucked and she swallowed
The bubbly all down;
It fizzled and fuzzled
All over her gown.
The rest gathered round
Waiting their turn;
For those quite undead
How quickly they learn!
I popped all the bottles
And gave them all out;
As the zombies grew drunker
And started to shout.
They were lively and merry
Those living dead ghouls;
And in no time at all
Were acting like fools.
The Undead That Saved Christmas Vol. 2 Page 21