by Strand, Jeff
As we climbed the stairs to the lines, the building began to shake and rumble from the grinders startin’ up. I pulled a pair of yellow foam earplugs from my shirt pocket, rolled ‘em up and stuck ‘em in my ears. When I reached the top of stairs, the stench caught me off guard. We only thought it’d been bad before. Remembering the way water from the lagoon splashed in my face during log falls, I pulled the paper mask out of my pocket and put it on. The others around me did the same.
That night, I was paired with Ernie Hamilton. He liked to pee in the magazines instead of going downstairs, and climbed up on the roof to sleep between loads. Lazy as the day is long. One time he didn’t wake up and I had to get the foreman to help me when the grinders started runnin’ empty. Why he didn’t get a free pass to the unemployment office, I don’t know. His wife must have been stepping out with the supervisor or something. Stuff like that happens in a small town.
I clambered over the metal stiles that spanned the conveyers until I got to Number Six, took a deep breath, put the new gloves on under my work gloves and turned toward the lagoon for the first time. Mixed in with the debarked logs were naked, decomposed bodies. They floated in the water and dangled behind the grotto ceiling like there’d been a hurricane or somethin’. They was all torn up, with missin’ chunks of skin. I could see their muscles, bones, and innards. Their eyes gaped in what looked like amazement—those that still had eyes, that is.
Acid churned in my stomach and burned my throat. My flesh ran cold. We’d seen these things on TV, but to be this close was something else. I wanted to take a deep breath to settle my nerves, but the stench made that seem like a bad idea. One of ‘em bobbed to the surface right in front of me. For a minute, I thought it was gonna crawl out of the lagoon and bite me. I took a step back, then I caught myself. I didn’t know who might be watchin’. They’re just logs, I told myself. No different from the millions of others I’ve sent to the grinders over the years. I swallowed hard, took off my helmet—against company regs, but who cared?—put on a little hat made out of newsprint, and wrenched a picaroon out of the overhead beam. Just logs.
Ernie was sittin’ on the wooden bench beside the line, lookin’ green around the gills and smokin’ a cigarette—also against regs, but it probably helped mask the stench. When he noticed me starin’ at him, he leapt up, ground his cigarette out under his foot and reached for one of the consoles that hung from the ceiling between each pair of magazines. At the push of a button, the conveyer sprang to life. It was show time.
The first object I struck with my peavey pole was solid. A log. I thanked God and all the saints, and pulled it close enough to get my picaroon into it. Water slopped over the edge of the lagoon and pooled at my feet as I hauled it onto the conveyor beside me. Only eight more hours, I told myself. I can do this.
The next one was a log, too, and I almost had myself convinced this wouldn’t be so bad after all. Then my peavey hit somethin’ that didn’t feel the way any log did. It sank in with a dull thunk. I couldn’t bring myself to look. I just hauled it close, dragged it onto the belt and focused on the logs bobbin’ in the lagoon, tryin’ to figure out how to avoid the nightmares floatin’ among them. The first monster disappeared from my peripheral vision and I chased it with another log the same way I chase scotch with a beer.
“Ah, crap,” I heard Ernie say behind me, loud and clear through his facemask and my earplugs. I tried not to imagine him rollin’ that thing off the line and into the magazine. Then I tried not to picture what the log did when it landed on top of it. Tried, and failed.
The first hour was grim. The creatures didn’t take up as much room as logs did and the wood fallin’ on top of ‘em smashed ‘em up even more, so it took longer to fill the magazines than usual.
When we finished the first load, I got out of there as quick as I could without looking like I was runnin’ away. I ambled down the stairs and headed through the maze of machinery to the cafeteria, walking faster the farther away I got. I left my lunchbox in my locker. Nothing solid was gonna stay in my stomach, so I just had coffee. Gracie, who worked the cash, offered a tired smile. Usually I woulda flirted with her, but I wasn’t in the mood. I didn’t think she was, either. Everyone in the mill knew what we was doin’.
Since it wasn’t break time for anyone else, the cafeteria was deserted. The night watchman saw me and sauntered over from his booth at the main entrance.
“Gil,” he said.
I nodded and drank some coffee. It tasted like mud.
“As bad as they say?”
I looked up from my cup and nodded. He must have seen somethin’ in my face, ‘cos he didn’t stick around. I glanced at the clock, dreadin’ the moment when I had to go back. It came soon enough, though. I put in my earplugs, strapped on the facemask and slipped on the rubber gloves before I mounted the stairs to groundwood again.
It was Ernie’s turn to haul, so I wore my hardhat, grabbed a picaroon and stationed myself at the front of the line. The first three things that came at me were logs. Then one of them things showed up. It was harder to handle than timber, soft and floppy, with limbs—and other parts that were never meant to dangle—danglin’ all over the place. It almost got past me, and what a monumental disaster that would have been if it had reached the end of the belt and tumbled onto the floor with the oversized pieces someone would trim at the end of shift with a chainsaw.
I wrestled it into the magazine and right away there was another one. And another. It didn’t really matter how they went in. Because they was flexible they couldn’t jam up like logs. Still, old habits die hard. I lined them up like soldiers at attention when I could, and didn’t look down when I dropped logs on top. My earplugs and the steady thrum of the grinders saved me from the sound of them bein’ crushed and mangled by falling timber. Even so, my imagination did a pretty good job. I was just glad I wasn’t downstairs to see what was comin’ out of the grinders.
Men who work in a mill are used to getting used to things. At the end of the first shift, we kidded around a little, though nobody mentioned the gruesome sights we’d seen over the past eight hours. After two weeks, we was telling zombie jokes and playing tricks on each other with decomposed arms and legs. We got through it, because we had no choice. No one had a trade, and there was only so many jobs at Burger King. We all spent a little more time at the bar, and showered and washed our clothes more’n usual, but as long as the paychecks kept comin’ we showed up and did our jobs.
After six weeks, it was all over. The box of masks and gloves disappeared. It still reeked on the lines—the smell had soaked into the timber beams and wooden floors—but we was used to it by then. I won’t say we were sorry but, for a while, we had been more than just mindless cogs in the machine that churned out newspaper at the other end of the mill. Maybe we were a little disappointed we didn’t have that any more.
I’ve worked from one end of this place to the other, from the steam plant to shipping, but I never really stopped to think about where all the paper we made ended up. New York, London, Tokyo—they was all just names to me. I went to Vegas once for a vacation and found big cities not to my likin’.
Outside of our little town, nobody knew what was in the newspapers they read at the breakfast table or on the subway on the way to work. People crumpled up our paper for packing material, lined their birdcages and litter boxes with it, and even wrapped their fish and chips up in it in some places, or so I’m told.
We spread that disease better’n any old bonfire ever could. Every time someone got a paper cut, or wiped their noses after reading the paper, they caught a dose. Every time someone shook hands with a friend or kissed a lover, they passed it on.
No one knew until the first newly infected dead person crawled out of his grave, so it had plenty of time to spread. By the time they figured out what had happened, it was too late. The tree-huggers never said a word when someone suggested burnin’ the mill to the ground. For all I know, one of them struck the first match. That’s how
quickly priorities change.
And now, dear jeezus, they’re everywhere—in every town and city on the planet. Maybe even in Timbuktu, for all I know. The tide has turned against us once more—for good.
So, now I’m filling the magazine again, one bullet at a time, and waitin’.
‘Cos I know they’re coming. It’s only a matter of time.
This time it’s the end.
About the
AUTHORS
JAMES ROY DALEY ~ is a writer, editor, and musician. He studied film at the Toronto Film School, music at Humber College, and English at the University of Toronto. In 2007 his first novel, The Dead Parade, was released in 1,100 bookstores across America. In 2009 he founded Books of the Dead Press where he enjoyed immediate success working with many of the biggest names in horror. His first two anthologies, Best New Zombie Tales Volume One, and Best New Zombie Tales Volume Two, far exceeded sales predictions, leading many of the top horror writers in the world to view his little company as one worth watching. Other books include Terror Town, 13 Drops of Blood, and Into Hell.
RAY GARTON ~ Ray is the author of more than 50 books, including the novels Ravenous, Bestial, and the recently released, Scissors. Dozens of his short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and have been collected in five volumes. His novel Live Girls was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and in 2006 Ray was presented with the Grand Master of Horror Award. He lives in northern California with his wife Dawn and their many cats.
MATT HULTS ~ Matt is a writer and artist living Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and two children. His drawings and fiction can be found lurking between the pages of such anthologies as Fried! Fast Food, Slow Deaths; Harvest Hill; Undead: Skin & Bones; Horror Library Volume 2; Best New Zombie Tales One & Two, Northern Haunts, and The Beast Within, which he also edited. His first novel, HUSK, was released by Books of the Dead Press in 2010.
JESSICA BROWN ~ Jessica is a lifelong fan of horror film and fiction and resides near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, only a few short miles from Living Dead ground zero. A short fiction writer and aspiring novelist, her work has been featured in Pill Hill Press’ Twisted Legends collection and will be appearing in several Library of the Living Dead anthologies in the upcoming year. Her serial novel, Rain, can be found on Facebook and Textnovel.
KEALAN PATRICK BURKE ~ Described as ‘a newcomer worth watching’ (Publishers Weekly) and ‘one of the most original authors in contemporary horror’ (Booklist) Kealan Patrick Burke is the author of The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, The Living, Midlisters, Masters of the Moors, Currency of Souls, Kin, Ravenous Ghosts, and The Number121 to Pennsylvania, and the editor of the anthologies: Taverns of the Dead, Night Visions 12, Quietly Now, Brimstone Turnpike, and Tales from the Gorezone. Visit him at kealanpatrickburke.com/.
JEFF STRAND ~ Jeff’s story in this anthology is so short that he’d feel guilty offering up more biographical information than a simple “His website is jeffstrand.com” so that’s all he’ll do.
ROBERT SWARTWOOD ~ Robert lives physically in Pennsylvania and lives virtually at robertswartwood.com.
GARY MCMAHON ~ Gary’s fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.K. and U.S., and has been reprinted in both The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror and The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. He is the British-Fantasy-Award-nominated author of Rough Cut, All Your Gods Are Dead, Dirty Prayers, How to Make Monsters, Rain Dogs, Different Skins, Pieces of Midnight, Hungry Hearts, and has edited an anthology of original novelettes titled We Fade to Grey. Angry Robot/HarperCollins will publish the novels Pretty Little Dead Things and Dead Bad Things in 2010 and 2011. Visit Gary at: garymcmahon.com.
HARRY SHANNON ~ Harry has been an actor, an Emmy nominated songwriter, a recording artist, music publisher, VP at Carolco Pictures, and a Music Supervisor on Basic Instinct and Universal Soldier. His novels include Night of the Beast, Night of the Werewolf, Daemon, Dead and Gone and The Pressure of Darkness, as well as the Mick Callahan suspense novels Memorial Day, Eye of the Burning Man, and One of the Wicked. His new collection A Host of Shadows is from Dark Region Press. Shannon has won the Tombstone Award, the Black Quill, and has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. Contact him at harryshannon.com/.
GORD ROLLO ~ Gord was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, but has lived in Ontario, Canada since 1971. His short stories and novella-length work have appeared in many pro and semipro publications throughout the genre. He is currently in the middle of a four book novel contract with Leisure Books in New York City. The Jigsaw Man was published in mass-market paperback in August of 2008 and his follow up, Crimson, was released in March 2009. His next two novels, Strange Magic, and Valley Of The Scarecrow are both being released in 2010. Besides novels, Gord edited the acclaimed evolutionary horror anthology, Unnatural Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares. He also co-edited Dreaming of Angels, a horror/fantasy anthology created to increase awareness of Down’s syndrome and raise money for research. He’s hard at work on his next novel and can be reached through his website at gordqrollo.com.
BRIAN KNIGHT ~ Brian lives in Washington state, where he drinks too much coffee, smokes too many cigarettes, and collects Hawaiian shirts. Visit him at brian-knight.com.
SIMON McCAFFERY ~ Simon is a 46-year-old former magazine editor who sold his soul to high-tech corporate America. He lives in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area with his wife Angela and his three amazing children. Writing and selling fiction since 1990, he owes his love of zombies, science fiction, and things that go bump in the day (and night) to his father, James McCaffery, who taught Simon to read at an early age and gave him a box of paperback books when he was eleven. Something Wicked This Way Comes was among them.
JOHN GROVER ~ John is the author of Feminine Wiles, Whispering Shadows, A Beckoning of Shadows, and Tandem of Terror. Residing in Boston, Massachusetts, he previously studied creative writing online at Boston’s Fisher College. He is also a member of the New England Horror Writers––a chapter of the Horror Writers Association. His short stories can be found in Northern Haunts (Shroud Publishing), Zombology (Library of the Living Dead), Alien Skin Magazine, Morpheus Tales, Wrong World, The Willows, and Flesh and Blood Magazine. For more information, feel free to visit his award-winning website, shadowtales.com.
JEFF PARISH ~ Jeff is a 30-something native Texan who tries to pound a little bit of English into the skulls of high school seniors in Paris, Texas. He and his wife have a girl and two boys. He started writing in middle school, where he concentrated mostly on (bad) fantasy tales and (even worse) poetry. His writing skills developed over time, much to his delight and the relief of everyone he forced to read his work, and he gravitated to prose over poetry. He started work at a small newspaper in Greenville, Texas nearly a decade ago. But his newspaper career was suffocated in its sleep in 2006 after he realized journalism might be a noble profession, but slowly starving his family to death was not. He’s had stories selected for Flashing Swords, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Triangulation: End of Time, Bits of the Dead, In Bad Dreams II and Dragons Composed, among others.
JOHN L. FRENCH ~ John is a crime scene supervisor with the Baltimore Police Department Crime Laboratory. In 1992 he began writing crime fiction, basing his stories on his experiences on the streets of what some have called one of the most dangerous cities in the country. His books include The Devil of Harbor City, Souls On Fire, Past Sins and the upcoming Here There Be Monsters. He is the editor of Bad Cop, No Donut, which features tales of police behaving badly.
KIM PAFFENROTH ~ Kim is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College. He grew up in New York, Virginia, and New Mexico, and attended St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD (BA, 1988), Harvard Divinity School (MTS, 1990), and the University of Notre Dame (PhD, 1995). After writing several books on the Bible and theology, he turned his attention to the undead. He is the author of Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth (Baylor, 2006) - Winner, 2006 Bram Stoker Award; Dying to Live:
A Novel of Life Among the Undead (Permuted Press, 2007); and Dying to Live: Life Sentence (Permuted Press, 2008). He lives in upstate New York with his wife and two wonderful kids.
CHARLES BLACK ~ Charles is the editor of The Black Book of Horror anthology series. For more information of the series, visit: mortburypress.com
JONATHAN MABERRY ~ Jonathan is the NY Times bestselling author of several novels, including Ghost Road Blues (winner of the Bram Stoker Award), Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, The Wolfman, The Dragon Factory, and Rot & Ruin. His nonfiction books include the Stoker winning The Cryptopedia, Vampire Universe, They Bite, Zombie CSU and Wanted Undead or Alive. He has a series of Joe Ledger thrillers is in development for TV, and is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse and co-founder of The Liars Club––a group of critically acclaimed writers who work together to support libraries, booksellers, literacy programs and a love of reading. Jonathan is a popular speaker and panelist at writers conferences and genre cons across the country. Visit him online at jonathanmaberry.com.
STEVEN E. WEDEL ~ Steven is a life-long Oklahoman best known for The Werewolf Saga books: Murdered by Human Wolves, Shara, Ulrik and Call to the Hunt (Scrybe Press). His other books include Darkscapes (Fine Tooth Press), Seven Days in Benevolence (Scrybe Press) and Little Graveyard on the Prairie (Bad Moon Books). After many jobs, Steve is currently a high school English teacher; he holds a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Oklahoma. Steve lives in central Oklahoma with his wife and four children. Visit him online at stevenewedel.com/.