All Things Zombie: Chronology of the Apocalypse

by Various Authors

  When he was barely two feet away, she lashed out, but neither foot hit the target. BugFace was staggering from side to side and it made it all the more difficult to hit him. She knocked him down all the same, only he landed at her feet. She shrieked and tried to jump up, pulling herself away from the chair and kicking out. BugFace grabbed for her but caught hold of the chair and wrenched hard before falling flat on his face.

  Alice straightened up, forcing herself into a standing position, and started stomping on him, kicking him again and again, but he crawled forward, trying to bite her feet.

  She jumped up, using the column that she was tied to as leverage, and slammed her feet down.

  She felt his skull crack.

  BugFace stopped moving.

  Alice yelled hard, muffled by the cloth tied to her face, but she yelled anyway.

  “Fuck you,” she screamed, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck you,” as she jumped up and down. Her shouting hid the sobs. The blood and sweat on her face hid the tears.

  Finally she collapsed on the floor, relief washing over her. Dead. BugFace was dead. It was over. She could get away now. It would take her another hour or so to break the rope, but she could do that. Then she could get away from here. Freedom. She could wear away the rope and finally find out where the building was. It didn’t matter where it was, really, she told herself. The two now dead men came most days, so it had to be somewhere near a town. And if not, they would have a vehicle, maybe two. She’d just take one of them and drive to a town, or to the nearest police station. That was it. Go to the nearest police station and tell them. They would need to come out and find the bodies. And they would need to search. What if there were others here? What if the two men had captured other people?

  That would be the worst, wouldn’t it? She thought. It would. No, there’s worse than that.

  She sniffed, wishing she could wipe away the snot and tears and blood, glad that she still hadn’t been sick, and forced herself not to look at the mess just a few feet away or she would be sick. That would be the worst thing that could ever happen to you now, she thought. After all this craziness, that would be the worst thing, to be sick inside the gag.

  She could choke on it. Maybe even die, if it got stuck.

  The absolute worst, ever.

  Then she heard the shuffling noise coming from the other room.

  Her heart started thumping again.

  How? There’s no one else, she thought. No one else.

  She saw the shape gradually appear in the doorway, dragging itself slowly across the floor. It took her a moment to realise what it was she was looking at. Such a mess. Such a horrible mess.

  Alice started pulling at her rope, wearing away at it some more, hurrying now, as the half-devoured remains of Gawk crawled across the floor towards her.

  It can’t get worse than this, she told herself. It can’t get any worse.

  Glynn James

  Glynn James, born in Wellington, England, in 1972, is a best-selling author of science fiction, post-apocalyptic, dark fantasy, horror, and dystopian fiction.

  www.glynnjames.co.uk

  Lost and Found

  By Shannon Walters

  Bark, Bark, Bark!!! The sound of Goose barking woke her suddenly from a dream taken from days gone by. She went from feeling pleasantly sleepy and too warm, to instantly alert. The dog didn’t bark much; in fact, he hadn’t uttered a sound since she rescued him from certain starvation in Jacks house. And now here he was barking and backing away from the front door, all his brown and white hair standing up on end in a way that would be comical if the situation were not what it was. She hurried to the window and drew back the curtain to see a startling number of figures shambling in her front yard. A jolt of adrenaline instantly dumped into her system causing her hands to shake and everything came into sharp focus. There were more coming up the road, there didn’t seem to be an end to the line of grey, torn and damaged people.

  She quickly leaned over and picked up Goose, shushing him harshly even though it appeared that they had already heard him. Some continued along the road, more than a few had turned into her driveway and stumbled across the lawn. Looking around her home, she saw the flaws. The glass sliding doors, the huge picture window in the living room that was only two feet off the ground outside the house and even her front door wasn’t anything special. It had a worn, wood frame that shuddered every time someone slammed it shut. The basement had only small windows no person could fit through but the thought of closing herself off in that dark, damp place wasn’t even an option.

  The first one had reached the door. How did they know to go for the door? There must be some latent memory still alive inside their dead brain. This concept made Sara almost physically ill as she began to think about her daughters suffering and quickly stowed the thought for a later debate. If she were to lose herself to that now, would mean death, OR worse, un-death. She didn’t want to be one of them. Was there a heaven or even an after-life of some sort? She didn’t know, her childhood faith in a God had been tested and tortured in so many ways before she had even had children. If not for the sheer mystical, magical nature of the birth and subsequent joys she experienced with her daughters, she might still be faithless. The trudging nightmares on her lawn didn’t help her debate. But the idea crept into her head as she rushed around stuffing the last of her canned food into one of Robs backpacks. What if these creatures were not truly dead? Despite her doubt in the actuality of one true God, she firmly believed in what religion called a soul. What parent could hold their newborn baby and even suggest that it didn’t exist? Could their souls be stuck inside, giving them some memories and guidance, so they were not just blindly stumbling, or simply guided like a predator looking for a meal? Part of her acknowledged that this train of thought, this frantic rationalization as she prepared for flight from her house was merely a defense mechanism to stop her panic, and enable her to flee from her home without totally falling apart. There was no time to say goodbye, no time to think about what small trinket might ease her pain in the future, if there was a future.

  The banging on the door was joined by a hollow thump as bodies collided with the glass of the living room window. Knowing that was going to be the first thing to go, Sara rushed from the kitchen. On her way by the kitchen table, she saw the spiral-bound notebook with the list. Before nodding off at the table she had written a handful of names on the paper. The first three were crossed off. She had listed Lana, Robin, and Mark. All crossed off. There were 3 more names. One of them would be alive. One of them would take Goose. She shoved the list into her pocket with a small stack of pictures from the mantle, pictures of her girls. She wouldn’t be able to look at those pictures for a long time.

  She scooped up Goose, who had stopped barking and was now whining a persistent almost pathetic way that only small dogs could pull off. In the darkened hallway she paused in front of the girl’s room. Hand out and poised over the door handle, shaking, she wrestled with the desire to take one more look in the room she had decorated herself and where her girls had spent their lives sleeping and playing. The sound of breaking glass and tumbling bodies quickly changed that. Turning from the door, she glanced back to see two of the ghouls righting themselves after their tumble through the broken picture window in the living room. Goose was shaking hard in her arms and she clung to him tighter as she dashed into the master bedroom and closed the door and locking it. The dog was dumped unceremoniously onto the bed. Perfume bottles and picture frames smashed on the floor as she shoved the large, heavy dresser across the wood floor to block the door. Just as the piece of furniture was in place the first of the thumps began; followed by the sound of nails dragging across the door. The sound was terrible. These things felt no pain and as such clawed at the splintering wooden door with a ferocity that made her extremely fearful. Across the room, she peered out her bedroom window while shoving both arms through the straps of the backpack. She stopped, looked at Goose and pulled the pack back off. Opening th
e pack, she shoved in a handful of clothes hastily pulled from the laundry basket by the bed, and placed Goose on top. He was shaking and whining non-stop and she knew she could not get out the window and escape this horror while holding onto him. She whispered a “good boy” and quickly closed the top, pulling the straps tightly closed. The door began to crack, the cheap lockset pushed beyond its intended limits as she rethreaded her arms into the now-heavier pack. Outside the window, looking into the backyard, there were no bodies yet. She unlatched the screen and dropped it to the ground and, quickly lifted her leg over the sill. The drop was almost five feet and it wasn’t going to be easy with the pack on. She eased her other leg over and was turning over onto her stomach to try to lower herself down when the door finally gave. The press of the bodies outside it easily shoved the dresser across the slick floor and they began to pour in, tumbling and climbing over each other in their desperate need to get at her warm flesh.

  Her plan to lower herself as close to the ground as possible was cut short as panic fueled her motions. She fell the rest of the way from the window, twisting her body so that she would not land on the pack and hurt the dog. When she hit the grass below the window she felt a sharp pain her ankle which collapsed beneath her and she landed on her hands and elbows, hard. The pain in her ankle and hands was forgotten the instant she raised her head and saw the horrible sight before her. The fenced in area where the chickens spent their days was crushed under the weight of around five or so of the undead. The chickens had been trapped under the collapsing wire and were now being pulled piece by piece through the wire. The pained sounds coming from the birds were almost like children screaming. She swallowed back the urge to vomit and turned away from the tragic scene, feeling guilty for not just letting them out to roam free and fend for themselves while she still had the chance.

  She took her first steps toward the wood line, regret at having to leave her car behind ramping up her fear another notch. To be out amongst these things without any protection was almost too much to bear. The awful sound of bodies tumbling from the window, the thump of them hitting the ground, not even attempting to break their fall was unnerving. Breaking bones or not, they were on their feet more quickly than she thought possible and she quickened her painful steps, desperately trying to put distance between them.

  In the woods, the going was tougher. The lower limbs of the apple trees that lined the property scratched and dragged across the large pack on her back, throwing her off balance more than once. Under foot, the roots and rocks covered by the carpet of decaying leaves from the past fall was even more precarious given the state of her ankle. The soft bed of leaves also served to deaden the sound of the walking dead and as she moved through the trees she glanced back to see a dark mass of them following her. The shade from the canopy of late spring growth made the woods a shadowy realm where everything was a threat. A light breeze swam through the trees bringing with it the stench of the bodies. Goose must have smelled it too because she could hear him whimpering and feel his shivers through the frame of the backpack. Terror fueled her race from the hungry things. Sweat poured freely down her back and from her forehead to sting her eyes. Her breath came in gasps and she fought the urge to run knowing that might damage her ankle further.

  Up ahead through the trees, the bright sun illuminated the road bed. Almost out, she thought…then what? Praying there were none of those things on the road, she eased herself from the last of the shadowy brush and seeing that the coast was clear, she moved out to the road and walked as fast as possible away from her home. Stopping just once to free Goose from the confines of the bag, she trudged forward. Every step was torture as the road had none of the forgiveness of the soft leaves of the forest. That, coupled with having to leave her home behind to the monsters had both tears and sweat nearly blinding her. Once again, stuffing her emotions in an imaginary box, she took a deep breath and wiped her eyes with the neck of her shirt. Town was in the other direction, probably where the horde had come from; this direction would eventually lead over the mountain. The houses become farther and farther apart until the road spiraled down into the next town. She knew that was almost fifteen miles away. Fifteen miles of walking, waiting for the ghouls to appear around every blind bend in the road, she shuddered at the thought. Not truly an option with her ankle in this state. She needed a car.

  The sound of cracking branches heralded the first of the dead to break out onto the road behind her just as she moved out of sight around a corner. Goose didn’t bark this time; he just jogged along on his little legs, his hackles up and his head looking back every so often. It was almost like he knew not to bark, that doing so would only attract their attention. Sara put her head down and focused on moving, one foot in front of the other, as fast as possible, the throbbing ankle dictating the pace. Sometimes the little dog stayed right at her feet, not quite tripping her up, other times he lagged behind, doing what dogs do, sniffing this or that or squatting in the tall grass beside the road. Not looking back, she continued in this manner, mind blank to everything, counting potholes, until a rumble of thunder disrupted her thoughts. Looking up, she saw that dark clouds covered the sky from horizon to horizon. Behind her, there was nothing to see, thankfully, but the empty road. Ahead, the roof of a house peeked from beyond the tree tops. This was the goal now, she quickened her pace, determined to reach the house before the storm or before the dead that were surely behind her caught up.

  The farmhouse she came upon was older, as with many of the houses in this area; it was in need of some major TLC. There was a barn out to the rear of the house and the large doors were open, but the sun was hidden behind the dark storm clouds and so she couldn’t see what lay inside the building. The air here carried the smell of cattle dung but she saw none of the animals responsible for the smell. Ignoring the barn, she painfully climbed the steps to the front door of the home. Knocking on the door, she was greeted with silence. Before trying the door, Goose was scooped up and placed back into the bag. The knob turned freely in her hand and so with one last glance at the still empty road she let herself into the house.

  The inside was dimly lit through yellowed lace curtains that had probably hung there since the home was built. She pushed them open to allow as much light in as possible and proceeded to search the ground floor cautiously. Next, she crept up the stairs and halfway up she heard Goose begin to growl inside the pack that clung to her achy shoulders. There were no other sounds and so she steeled herself and continued up the stairs. At the top, an open door to the master bedroom shed light on the dog’s unease.

  There, in the half-light of a stormy sky, the contents of the room were laid bare. The story was easy to put together, the remains of the man in the chair, the gun on the ground just below his limp hand, on the table next to him, a hastily scrawled note with only two words, IM SORRY. In the bed to his left the remainder of his life lived. The woman had her hands tied to the metal frame of the bed. Her legs pulled tight to the footboard, and her head, a mess of gore that Sara wouldn’t look too closely at. The fact that the woman appeared severely bloated at her middle although her arms and legs were rather thin, didn’t click right away. There was a large knife on the bed next to the woman’s prone body. A rumpled blanket covered her middle. Before she could stop herself, Sara pulled the blanket away. The memory of her pulling the blanket away from her freshly undead daughters face flashed before her and she was momentarily blinded by tears and by the sharp white light of a close lightning strike outside the window. She dropped the blanket and rubbed at her eyes, not even sure why she felt the need to pull back the blanket anyway, but…she looked. The cut in the woman’s bloated middle was not very large, and hardly any blood had spilled from it. But the one thing that Sara saw in the next flash of lightning, illuminating like a picture flash, brighter and clearer than she would ever want to see it, was a tiny, perfectly formed, grey, hand, clinging tightly to the skin of its mother’s torn flesh. And she saw that the deceased man in the chair had
used his pistol, not just on himself, not just on his beloved wife, but also on the tiny person that had been almost done growing inside this poor woman’s belly.

  She used the blanket to cover the woman and child. She pulled a blanket from the end of the bed and covered the man. They couldn’t hurt anyone now and the storm began to blow at full force as she pulled the bedroom door shut behind her and also closed the door on any further thought on the sad fate of the small family. Back downstairs she quickly locked all the doors and painfully shoved furniture in front of the doors and windows. It was getting too dark to see, only the lightning flashing made it possible to make her way through the rooms. In the kitchen she found a flashlight and food. Most people that lived so far from the big stores up here kept larger than normal supplies of food. Plus most of the women up here canned the produce from their gardens. Sara grabbed a few cans and headed up the relative safety of the stairs, choosing a bedroom as far as possible from the first one she had entered.

  Goose was released from the confines of the backpack and Sara stared out the window that luckily looked out on to the road. There was no sign of anyone out there in the torrential rain fall. The thunder cracked so loudly it reverberated in the windows and great gusts of wind rattled the glass in its panes. After staring up and down the road as far as she could see from the window, patiently waiting for the lightning to illuminate the now dark roadway, Sara chose a jar of preserved apples and forced it open by tapping the sealed lid edge against the bureau. The smell of cinnamon and apple flooded the room and she felt her stomach growl as she realized she could not even remember when she last ate. Time had blended together in her grief and she honestly had no idea what day it even was. She slurped the juice from the jar and pinched out an apple slice for Goose. He settled down by her feet and contentedly munched.