Matthew R. Stitt // The Writer’s Archive

Tag: zombies

  • Chapter 1 -Destruction

    AI generated image

    Erik stood near a pale blue minivan. Its windows blacked out with dirt. He tried the driver’s side sliding door, but it was locked.

    A pair of tall, blond, thrall twins mill nearby. They blindly search for the source of the noise. The tinyist ‘chunk’, ‘chink’ or ‘ding’ sets them in — It’s a weird sight, for sure, but they would be listening for any noise. The twins slapped the sides of the van. They tried the door handles but they were locked, Erik assumed.

    He stood motionless. He watched as the blond twins search for a way inside. The nearest crept closer, but Erik kept quiet. If they couldn’t hear him, they had no idea where he was.

    Erik swore silently when the woman screamed again. He grasped the bat tightly. The twins immediately escalated their abuse of the van. The scream also attracted other thrall, which hobbled, with purpose, toward the noise.

    “The situation is escalating. Soon a rescue will be impossible.” He thought as a human-like… but fur-covered creature brushed his shoulder.

    Erik held in a yelp but then gasp as a brown torso brushed past him. He tracked the creature with his eyes. The torso was covered in blood and patches of short fur. Above the torso was a human form, infected, blind and a thrall.

    “A Bridger? This is a whole new low for the world…” Erik thought, his posture stiffened. We can address the obvious escalations by the Vampire later… What are you going to do about the woman?”

    Erik’s thought turns into an argument as many of them did.

    “You stepped out of that goddamn car to help this woman but now you’re just standing here.”

    “I’m trying to save my own life here,” he replied.

    “Moments ago you woke from a whiskey coma with thoughts of suicide… did you even remember the pistol?”

    “Damn it no,” Erik silently retorted. “I left it in the car.”

    “Great… good job. What are you going to do with that bat?”

    Erik held the bat in his left hand. The Bridger creature, often called a satyr within ancient stories, approached the blue minivan. It felt around the sides of the van till it reached the windows. It began to dig its human fingers into the creases of the minivan windows and began to pull.

    Erik moved automatically and struck the satyr legs with the bat. It’s thin legs broken. The satyr screamed and collapsed. The other thrall turned, distracted from there original mission and began to beat upon the disabled creature. They viciously tore the satyr apart only feet from him.

    Erik, finding an opportunity within the gory scene turned and walked to the drivers side door handle and jerked it. It was locked. Moved to the side door and said.

    “Lady, I am human. Open the door. I mean to rescue you. Not hurt you. We have a small window of time. I need you to trust me… please.”

    He banged on the sliding door gently, so to not make too much noise.

    “Please,” he repeated.

    Erik searched the area. A large, overweight thrall stumbled toward him. It passed a small coupe. Erik looked at the sliding door then stepped toward the monster. Erik struck him with the bat. The bat blasted the upper thigh. The thrall stutter-stepped. Paused then walked forward like Erik hadn’t hit him. Erik threw the bat back for another swing when the van door opened. Erik turned. He expected a woman but saw a young girl. Behind her a pair of human bodies, motionless. He struggled with memories of his own daughter. This young girl was the same age.

    After a few seconds Erik shook himself free of the memory and turned to face the thrall. The overweight creature grabbed Erik’s shoulder. Erik twisted his body but lost his balance. He tumbled forward and fell onto the grass-covered concrete.

    The thrall grabbed his ankle. Erik twisted and lay on his back.

    The thrall stood over him. Its eyes pale and dead. Scars upon its fat face. It tried to collect Erik’s other foot but Erik kicked out of it. The thrall served their vampire master but they were not really good at anything. They were violent but loyal. Within MARS, the thrall had a number advantage.

    The twins, attracted by the noise, appeared. The young girl within the van closed the sliding side door. The noise attracted the attention of the twins and they grasp the door. The girl screamed. The twins pulled harder.

    Erik watched, from the ground. His captor, the thrall, had him and would not let go of his ankle. Erik’s ankle twisted and he growled. The pain shooting up through his body.

    He then suddenly screamed, struggled and began to search and grab anything that could make noise.

    He found a few aluminum cans, rocks and finally a good sized piece of metal. He thrust the jagged piece into the soft part of the large monster’s throat.

    The twins, drawn from the van, hovered above Erik’s head. The large thrall released his grip from the ankle. Erik freed himself. Blood fell upon a dirty, white shirt. The thrall grasp its throat and fell forward. Erik rolled away and got as close to the car, nearby, as he could.

    The twins, mistaking the larger one for Erik, began to beat on the injured thrall. The thrall squawked, blew air through blood. Erik crawled, as silently as he could forward and pass the commotion. He stood, scanned the area and found several dozen additional thrall heading toward him. The minivan door was open and a five-foot-one young girl stood beside the vehicle. A backpack in her hand and behind her, in the van, a pair of dead human bodies.

    Erik motioned for her to follow him…

  • The Red Line

    The cold sat and ate upon Erik’s fingers like rabid dogs. Nibbling away at the nerves as quickly as they could as he stood outside the bus stop waiting for the five o’clock Red line. Erik had lost his gloves and his pockets were full of rocks. Rocks collected from his quarry, for the last few days. The rocks, a minor compulsory addiction for Erik when he couldn’t feed his other toxic addictions.
    The Red line bus was a two story monster on six wheels. The driver sat on the bottom right side behind a large front window. The doors, two of them, sat on the left side. One next to the driver and the other near the back. The driver slowed the monster. It growled and jerked and finally stopped with an angry burst of smoke from a metal pipe in the back.

    Erik shook his hands, willing the dogs from his fingers, picked up the duffel and stepped inside.

    The driver stopped him.

    “Blessed by the Omnipresent No’doer , you are,” the driver said. His chest and head human. His body was covered in black fur. His hands and feet large and clawed.

    “How have you not lost your fingers?”

    “There is still time,” Erik said as he placed the duffel on an empty seat and placed his bare hands under his coat.

    “The bus is a bit empty this morning Harry. Did you scare them all off with your ugly face and fierce temper.”

    “Ey, ridership has been falling off lately. This old Bear has nothing to do with it.”

    “The vampire population is growing again. It makes it hard to trust anything. I done no’ how you survive in these conditions. You need to settle somewhere.”

    “I haven’t…” Erik began. “I don’t… never-mind.”

    “How do you drive this thing being a taur and all.” Erik add.

    The bear/man laughed as he closed the bus door and put it into Drive. The Red Line bus growled and lurched forward.

    “Where u heading tonight?”

    “I’m off to get arrested,” Erik said.

    “You can get arrested trespassing, which you do often. Where are you headed?”

    The bus begins to slow, it jerks to a stop. Harry opens the bus doors and a pair of gaunt men step upon the bus from the back door.

    Erik knows what they are immediately and he begins to stand.

    “Sit down!” Harry growls. “No judgement on my bus, ever. Everyone is allowed a ride on this bus.”

    “I’m not riding a bus with them on board!”

    Erik shouts as he steps toward the front door.

    “They are the sole reason for the death of my family!”

    Erik glared at the pairs elongated, muscular jaws and bulges beneath the loose fitting clothing.

    “Why are they here Harry? They can fly. I thought you were smarter then this.”

    Harry stood over Erik, who was not a small human, but was smaller then the human-like bear.

    “Sit down Eric,” Harry said, exposing large teeth and a powerful human torso.

    “On my bus, you are my guest and will be treated as so, understood.” He adds then repeats the statement to the young vampire. The vampire nod and sit near the back door.

    “No one is leaving till they reach the destination. Erik, please finish this plan of you wanting to get arrested.”

    Erik sits down.

    “Where are they going?” Erik asks.

    “I don’t ask. They have passes.” Harry replied.

    Erik sat quiet for several moments as the Red Line bumped along roads that had not been maintained in 5 years. Traffic had all but stopped while the vampire-infected humans known as Resurrected prowled the streets.

    The North Eastern Territory didn’t used cars much anymore. The Red Line and other buses filled the need mostly.

    The bus hit a large patch of trash lying in the street and the bus lurched left then right tossing the passengers around like dominoes.

    “Fine… Harry. Fine, I’ll tell you. Stop hitting shit in the road.”

    Harry smiled, slowed the bus and it stopped with a jerk. Harry opened the doors. Outside the door, a half mile away was a large stone wall. Erik watched as the two vampires stepped down. Through the grim covered glass he could see them unfurl a pair of wings each and begin to fly. The headed to the wall.

    “For the gods sakes, tell me the plan,” the bear/man growled as his claws scraped the metal floor. If it wasn’t for you mother I wouldn’t care less but I promised I would take care ya. Spill it boy.”

    “I need to get into the Zoo Harry there is someone I got to find.”

    “The Zoo? Are u mental? You know what’s in their, right?”

  • Teraphobia- Within the walls of hell stood heroes.

    A Speaker is a traveling storyteller, an ancient tradition brought back by a tragedy. An event disguised as an infection. That infection spread toppled the crippled US government but under the hood of the infection was a revolution. This was a bloodless coup. An explosion of a new population of humans. The new population split into three types Taur, Vampire, and Magicians.

    Eric Carson is a Speaker, quite accomplished and quite old now. At seventy-plus years old he travels less but he has more stories than all the other Speakers. He lives in the Northeast Territory which contains the former States of New York, New Jersey, and West to Wisconsin.

    Speaking at the Fox theater in downtown Detroit, Eric removes a heavy coat and adjusts a stool. He begins his story with a smile.

    “So happy to be in this grand theater. Certainly, a privilege to be invited to tell my story here. You recall the Creature Revolution started with a pigeon, brought back to life, then an explosion of creatures that overwhelmed the world order.
    This change caused fifty years of anarchy, authoritarianism, and finally peace.

    Human ethics has always ebbed and flowed. We do what we want but unpredictable tragedy turns up the dial. We are not all 100% human anymore. Human on the inside, Taur on the outside, or vampire. Some of us are magic and that’s always unpredictable.
    Wars and battles drag on for years in an attempt to establish a dominant species. Can we all agree we are now in a good place? Mostly?
    I was an alcoholic. I was angry. Drinking was an excuse to be angry.

    At the time I lived under bridges. I had no money so I stole to survive and drink. Every time I went out I risked exposure and local enforcement. I sat in a drunken stupor, one night. Nothing like a baseball bat in the gut to sober a man up. After the guards bloodied me up, to sober me up, they claimed.

    There was no drunk tank back then. All the “undesirables” were sent to the zoo. I’m sure you all have heard of zoos. Large walled cities they dumped the undead, criminals, and drunks into.

    They caught me under a bridge a few miles West of Central Containment Facility. West was home but I had lost my wife and daughter so barely a home. I was captured, shackled, and transported to the Central Containment Facility, or zoo as I like to call it. Men dressed in black pulled me from the car and chained me to a wall outside the zoo. I stood with a large diverse group of humans, no other creatures.
    A machine gun would go off every few minutes. Scared the crap out of me. Drunken ears were always so jumpy.
    Regarding the zoo, we all knew what was inside. We knew the guards didn’t have to care what happened to us. Escape would only prompt cruel beatings outside the wall. Inside the wall, the Resurrected would dispatch us in painful, brutal ways. The once human monsters were once thought a moment of scientific miracles. Death is avoided and a new life is given, they said. The Resurrected were nothing but unbridled rage.

    The guards were happy to count down the time as we prisoners waited. Anxiety drowning us. All those years ago, the kindest words… “the automatic guns gave us 500 feet before they would overwhelm us.”

    Those zoo walls towered over us. The guards unchained us and pushed us through the opening gate. I was near the center of the group as we approached. A pair of infected slipped out from the gates. They attacked the first prisoner, tearing clothes and violently pulling his head to the side. A second prisoner turned and ran. He was quickly captured by the guards. The gate was closed. Multiple additional guards rushed forward. They stabbed the Resurrected multiple times, which did little to stop them. The super strong Resurrected threw several guards. Gun fire erupted and the Resurrected fell to the ground but were not still. They shook and struggled where they fell. They wanted to move but physically were unable. Around the mound of disabled Resurrected was blood and bodies. Three guards lie motionless, their bodies broken. Two additional prisoners were dead. The distraction prompted a few prisoners to flee but they were captured, beaten, and pushed to the front. The guards opened the gate a second time and pushed us through.

    The machine guns above the wall fired a final time. Several hundred feet away some Resurrected collapsed to the ground. The noise prompted the attention of a group from the right. They moved forward en masse toward us. The guards, the wonderful human beings they were, began to fire in front of the group. Attempting to lead them to the prisoners faster.

    The mob of Resurrected approached. The guards increased their taunting. Tried what they could to move the inevitable faster. The nearest infected begin to growl as the scent of life came closer. They listened to slight movements. Shuffling feet, panicked breathing, screams. A funny thing about the group of men and women I was imprisoned with, the men were the screamers. The scream erupted suddenly. It scared the crap out of me. It split the group immediately. Half the group ran in all directions. The other half froze or tried to get back through the gate. That gate wasn’t going to move.
    The runners sprinted through a tall field of grass toward a paved road nearby. The Resurrected stood in small groups, within the grass. They were motionless, sleeping. waiting to tear us to pieces. Several runners sprinted past and into the grass ahead. I’ve never been athletic. My running lasted maybe 50-100 feet. After, I tried to just avoid the groups of Resurrected. I found a path beaten into the grass when two runners collapsed beside me. They stumbled and disappeared into the tall grasses. After the fall, I stopped and listened. I wish I hadn’t because the sound was horrific.

    “There was something in the grass. I can hear it grunting.” I remember saying. I also pointed this out to one of the Baker brothers behind me but we were all kinda paralyzed. The thought of death waiting to take you without you seeing it. There were monsters waiting for us in the grass and they could be anywhere. We couldn’t just run through the field now… but there was this path.

    “Follow the path,” said a voice from behind. “The Resurrected are easier to see within the path. You want to go that way and do it now.

    The man had been through some horrific things. The left side was covered in scars and the right a mask.
    “We call them Crawlers,” he added as he pushed us gently to the path. “They have broken or missing legs. They crawl through the grasses. They are very slow.”
    “Pale, sickly things. You don’t want to run into them or see them.”

    I lead the group. The brothers behind me then the masked man. Behind him was a gaggle of others following farther away. I approached the location when a young man sprinted past me and through the grass. Behind him was a Resurrected, thin but strong human monster, running after. Gawd, I didn’t even know they could run. The only advantage we runners had was that the Resurrected were blind. Cancerous tumors blocked their sight. The masked man turned and swept the monster off his feet. The creature hit the ground hard and tumbled into a Crawler. I saw its pale limbs and stretched unnatural jaw. To my absolute shock, it was a disabled vampire.

    I turned back to the runner but he had disappeared. The masked man urged us to move forward. The mob of remaining prisoners fell in behind the four of us.
    We approached a curved glass building, atop the glass was a sculpted wooden red slab. A second slab covered a large neglected parking lot. Beneath the second slab was a city bus. The bus lay, its tires deflated, across the bus carport. The masked man pointed us toward the bus, specifically the closed folded door.

    To the right, two large centaurs milled within the lot. Their human forms leaned forward, barely able to stay atop their equine host. Behind us was the Resurrected. The barely-human monsters targeted the stragglers in the human mob.
    The attacks sent the mob into a panic and they pushed forward and past us.

    The masked man pointed toward the bus. I noticed this was a school bus. Its rear tires had been shredded and it sat against the front door of the bus station. The entrance to the bus was closed.

    Knowing the noise from the mob would attract everything in the area I ran as fast as I could to that door. I slapped the center of the folding bus door, hoping it would open but it did not. I continued to bang on the door as the others in the group searched for a different entrance. I looked to the masked man for guidance but he had suddenly become as panicked as the rest of us. He fumbled through his pocket till he pulled out a radio.

    “Tweety, open the door, now!” He shouted into the radio.
    “Ai, Scotty… I’m on my way,” was the eventual reply.

    Infected approach from the rear and the human forms on the Resurrected Taur woke. The large human-horse creatures pawed at the grass-covered concrete. Both centaurs bolted toward a runner, that has passed in a panic. They gained on the poor woman as she screamed. I watched as the monsters plowed into the woman and she stumbled into a building wall. I remember being unable to move. Unable to help the woman at all and really wanting a drink.
    “Remember, they can’t see us,” the masked guide named Scotty said to me. “If you are quiet, you should survive if they surround us.”

    I turned to repeat this to the brothers, they had stuck very close, but they had disappeared. I looked back toward the woman and I see them trying to figure out how to fight the centaur to save the woman. The two men had thick beards and a suicidal attitude, my opinion- of course.
    I looked back at Scotty and he signaled I hit the door again so I did, only harder. The door stayed shut. I heard him curse under his breath.

    “Tweety, get this damn door open,” he shouted only to regret it when several Resurrected rushed us and shoved us into large piles of trash surrounding the bus.

    That masked man bounced to his feet like a rubber band. He ducked and swerved, finally planting a foot-long blade into the Resurrected’s head.

    I was not so lucky to know a damn thing, let alone karate. I wrestled with the brute. Trying to deflect blows and possibly forcing the thing to hurt itself. It grabbed my throat and squeezed. I felt my breath disappear. I gasp for what was no longer there. Any plans I had were gone. I fought with the energy I rarely had but with the lack of strength, I had always had.

    My arms went numb and I stopped fighting. I stared up at my attacker. It was a young fifteen-year-old female child gifted with upgraded strength, upgraded anger, and pale, lifeless eyes.

    I watched as the young child, so focused on my fall and collapsed after Scotty stabbed his large knife through her head. Painful memories of my own daughter lost years prior, reappeared. The resignation… the darkness returned with a gasp of air.

    Scotty pulled me to my feet. My head spun and I stumbled into the open bus door. I recovered and looked to move forward.

    I heard them before I saw them. The swearing and the gruff cackling as the Baker brothers approached and stepped inside the bus.

    That was until we saw a little girl standing in the chaos. She stood pipe straight and silent as Resurrected passed by to attack panicking adults.

    “I understand why we are here,” Sean Baker said to me. “Why is she her?”

    The only thing I could think of at the time was the girl refused to leave her family.

    “She must have lost her family,” I said and began to push past the two large men.

    “You are in no condition to fight these Resurrected,” Sean shot back and he was right. I had not fought anyone but myself in several years. I demonstrated my skill just a few minutes prior.

    “…but this girl can’t die.” I protested. “We have to save her.”

    “Listen, man” Sean replied. “You ain’t saving anyone. Leave the saving to the Baker boys and Phantom of the Opera masked man out there.

    The Baker brothers, Sean followed by Andrew stepped from the bus, past Scotty, and into the mess of panic and monsters.

    They dodged and weaved through the crowd of Resurrected, careful to avoid many of the survivors who were increasingly unpredictable. Without their sight, the Resurrected relied on their hearing but with the mass of bodies and screams, I imagine it was hard for them to pinpoint anyone individually. They would attack en mass any loud noise, which prompted an idea. The rear of the bus was shoved inside the bus station and served as a door into the shelter. I ran from the door through the back of the bus and into the station.

    I ran to the far end of the station nearest the mob. There was a glass door, locked. I jerked the door closed in an attempt to make a noise. That only worked to catch the attention of the nearest Resurrected. It didn’t clear any from the survivors. I banged upon the glass of the station all along the side. I managed to distract a half dozen. I went back to the door. Three angry men slapped the door with their malnourished hands. They attempted to pull the door open but it was chained thoroughly. I screamed profanities as loudly as I could to try to draw more and it was moderately successful but I wasn’t thrilled with my attempts at heroism. I pulled a couple more but I watched as several more survivors fell and the young girl had disappeared from the silent island she had successfully created within the center of the mob.

    Andrew and Sean Baker continued to navigate through the crowd, attempting to find this young woman. They pointed to the remaining survivors that would listen to the bus door.

    I continued my mostly fruitless distraction to pull away 50-some angry, vengeful Resurrected and I continued to pull only the closest.

    A door opened behind me and a quartet of guards, dressed in the same armor as the ones outside the fence, rushed from the door. Within the hands of the lead, the guard was a crude cassette and radio. This radio played a symphony of screams as loud as I had ever heard. The guards rushed past me and shoved the radio into the crack in the doorway. The noise drew a least the crowd of Resurrected to the glass walls of the bus station. I admit in the end it wasn’t the greatest idea after they began to shake the entire building.

    I ran back to the bus, climbed inside, and to the bus door. Scotty, his mask gone and his face monstrously scarred stood at the door. A pair of women and a man sit on the seats of the bus. I recommended, with some choice words, that they move from the bus to the station and they obliged. I stepped out of the bus door to see the brothers, bleeding and bruised walking toward me with the young lady. Behind them the remaining two survivors. Five survivors and I stepped onto the bus and the driver closed the sliding door.

  • Coyote- Tommy

    “No! I said don’t do that. What the hell!” 
    Tommy stepped toward the woman as she attempted to sprint between two pair of outstretched arms. The eager arms trying to find lunch, which was the source of the screaming. Tommy winched as the zombie on the left grasp her ponytail. The woman’s face, joyful she had made it past them, would soon change to horror if Tommy couldn’t help her but he had his own problems. The woman’s screams had attracted a mob of zombies but worse, other prisoners had made the zombies ravenous.

    The zombie we’re blind, their eyes covered in a cancerous white film but they felt everything. Tommy had developed a particular set of skills, allowing him to avoid the sun bleached, hungry grasped but he also avoided stupid moves like running between two zombies expected a miracle. 
    “Miracles didn’t exist”, Tommy thought as he watched the woman fall backward landing on her ass first, then her back. 
    “Miracles were part of that Christian revolution that disappeared once the world changed.” He continued the thought as he crouched low and walked forward, careful to avoid any noise. 

    “Some of the Coyotes take a stabbing approach…,” he silently explained to himself, running through a speech he planned to give at the Rail Station downtown
    later in the day. 
    “… but I prefer the silent, stalking, carefully planned approach. Avoiding conflict, wasted energy and potential surprises. It’s a far smarter approach.” His thought concluded. 
    He grabbed the woman by the ankles and pulled. The zombie holding her hair grasp tighter as he as his partner began to bend down. 
    “Her screaming doesn’t help.” Tommy said to himself as hope of rescuing this group of prisoners disappeared along with the credits he would receive from the families.

    “Five thousand credits per, multiplied by ten, now three… possibly two if I can’t rescue this dumb screaming woman. Hold it together Tommy. You can only do so much.”

    Tommy lifted the woman by both ankles and violently pulled her toward him. She slammed her head on the concrete beneath her but the zombie holding her hair lost his hold. Tommy pulled again, careful to be as stealthy as he could. Other zombie stood waiting, listening groping for a clue. 
    The woman lie under him. “Shut up!” He said looking into her terrified eyes. The look, familiar always haunting. “Your going to kill us both. Stop screaming.”

    The woman stopped screaming, for the moment, and Tommy helped her to her feet. 
    “We are 200 yards from Station 1,” Tommy said. “You can do this.” He encouraged her as he pulled a large gauze pad from his bag to stop the bleeding beneath her blond ponytail. He held it to her head for several moment as the two zombie approached from behind. 
    The two other survivors, that had listened, stood like statues. Every bone and muscle in their body shook but they stood silently waiting. 
    “Let’s go, quietly,” Tommy instructed. 
    The four, two woman and two men walked slowly toward Station 1, a run-down restaurant with a large plate glass window in the front

    Tommy placed the screaming woman’s hand on the gauze bandage and encouraged her to move forward quietly. She seemed to want to comply this time.

    The two zombie behind them, encouraged by the interaction with the woman, approached. Their hunger insatiable. Tommy, was aware and searched for anything to lay in the pairs path. 
    A shopping cart, covered in weeds, would work. Tommy suggested the group continue forward carefully and quietly as he veered off the the left to get the shopping cart. 
    He freed the cart, in moments. Picked up the cart so it would not make noise and turned. 
    All three survivors had began running toward the restaurant. 
    Tommy cursed like he had never before. “The ignorance of these people,” he thought as he watched one of the men fall and get brutally beaten up, then eaten. The women ran erratically around the zombies that approached. Skillfully, avoiding the hungry lunges of the predators. 
    “The zombie, though would overwhelm them,” Tommy thought. He knew it would happen, because it always did.

    The numbers around the women grew till the commotion had drawn all the zombie from around where Tommy stood. He stood alone, behind a shopping cart, watching the entire scene. The tragedy of the inability to listen and check the fear for sake of survival. Tommy was void of fear anymore, reborn to this brutal new world of terror. He walked pass the growing mob of zombie and headed toward the back of Station 1. He approached the back door, withdrew a key and unlocked the door. He opened the door and disappeared.

    Coyote Part 2

  • The Zoo part 3

    Tommy turned. Excited to see his old friend. Wishing he would visit more, Sean had passed years ago. He was never going to visit and no one was standing near the bar.

    “Damn it, ghosts hovering everywhere in this hell-hole. Sure there is plenty of reason to haunt but leave me the hell alone. I don’t need any false hope. I don’t need any false anything.”

    He noticed the bottle of whiskey sitting on the counter, stood and poured a shot of the liquor into his glass. He placed the glass back on the counter and tightened the top.

    A door opened and closed. Tommy heard Mary talking to someone. Soon the conversation began to moved toward the front. The voices familiar.

    “ Better not be another damn ghost,” Tommy shouted.

    “ I ain’t no ghost brother,” came the reply. Tommy smiled when he saw Julian saunter through the door.

    “Your brother will not leave me alone,” Tommy said.

    “You killed his ass, dummy what else is he going to do,” Julian said, with a laugh. His laugh was short and he swallowed the last part.

    “I’m sorry, Julian.”

    “Stop apologizing stupid. You did what you had too. I brought help.” Julian adds.

    He points toward the swinging restaurant doors leading to the kitchen. Standing in the doorway is a towering figure. The figure ducked under the door frame. The light from the restaurant sank into its dark, gaunt face revealing vile elongated teeth and thin pencil like lips…

    Tommy immediately drew his pistol. Julian countered by pulling his own short double-barrel shotgun.

    “No, Tommy! He is not a threat.”

    “Not a threat, christ. Julian, this creature killed your brother.”

    “This creature did not. Put the gun down.” Tommy picked up the tension in Julian’s voice. His own guilt magnifying the image of shooting an innocent man.

  • The Coyote part 3 – wip

    “So what do you think, Tommy?” Mary said.

    “Hmm… sounds fun,” Tommy began. “…but really… what do we know.”

    “Well,” Mary began as she poured Tommy a glass of whiskey. “As you already said to Mr. Carson, he is part of the Carson…

    “What do we know of the New World Group?” Tommy asked he downed the shot of whiskey and placed the glass next to the bottle.

    Mary opens a laptop covered in stickers. She searches then says, “per the Network search, looks like New World Group runs several financial companies for a large part of the new Commonwealth. They are based in the New York territory.”

    “Of course the New York territory most big companies still work out of the remains of New York City. What does the Network know of this Petty?”

    “Well, without the ability to communicate through the internet anymore I will have to ask and wait for that to come back.”

    “Charlie?”

    “Charlie,” Mary repeated then paused. “I can dig up information on Charlie. Sounds like he is inside. The Network will be able to find something. Give me an hour. Do you need the usual crew for this job?”

    Mary smiled.

    “Yes, Mary. You are a superstar. Can I get a refill?” He asked holding the empty glass of whiskey.

    “No,” Mary shot back. Her smile disappeared. “I should not of given you a glass of it. Severe lack of judgment on my part.”

    Tommy frowned but didn’t protest. “Thank you Mary you’re still a star.” He finished his meal and turned toward the large plate-glass windows within the front of the restaurant. Mary disappeared into the kitchen.

    Outside, decrepit sky-scrapers crept into view to his left. Out front and a half mile away was the city wall protecting the residents of the mid-western territory of Gregory. Between the wall and Tommy was a flat plot of tall grass and trees that struck him as odd because of its proximity to the tall office buildings. Tommy took a seat near the front window. A leathery hand scratched at the bottom of the window and caught Tommy’s attention for a moment. The owner of the hand had found itself in front of the window years ago but was too malnourished to be of any threat. Most of the zombie had suffered the same fate. Disabled and doing a better job as plant food then a threat to humans.

    They were not harmless. They have killed a fair amount of human prey. Mostly the new prisoners the do not know where to go. The zombie can still pack a punch. Even in their weakened state.

    “I should find the 9-iron some day,” he says out loud. The thought appearing suddenly.

    “You can’t hit worth shit, Tommy,” says a familiar voice coming from the back of the restaurant.

    “Sean!” Tommy replied with a smile. “Been waiting”

  • The Coyote – part 2

    Mornings within the walled off, reclusive world are the worst part of an already fucked up life. The smell of decay mixed with body order, sprinkled with a constant moaning.

    The moaning was worse then the stench at times. A twisted symphony of pain expressed in guttural “Ohhhhs” all day and night.

    Tommy stared at the dangling plaster above his head. The room had seen better days but as was the world.

    Zombies milled under his window waiting like dogs hungry for breakfast

    “Tommy!” Shouted Mary , the station chief.

    “You have a phone call.”

    Tommy dressed, grabbed his weapons and walked down the neglected wooden steps to the small cafe on the ground floor.

    At the bottom of the stairs was a kitchen. The kitchen was immaculate and cooking on the polished stove was a skillet filled with rice, onions, peas and carrots. On a counter to the left was a dozen beautifully polished red candied apples.

    Tommy fingered one of the apples and listened to Mary on the phone.

    “I understand, Mr. Carter.”

    “Tommy O’Neil is the coyote, yes sir.“

    “He’s on the way, sir.”

    “Listen, Mr. Carter. We give you our word. We will find your daughter.”

    “Don’t do that,” Tommy said as stepped into the cafe lobby. In front of him sat a large plate glass window. Mary sat at a small table. A phone sat in the center.

    “Don’t promise anyone anything. I am no superhero.” Mary, a thin woman, eyes that understood the horrors of the world, placed the phone receiver in Tommy’s hand.

    “Mr. Carter,” Tommy O’Neal began. He sat the phone on his shoulder and slicked back his hair.

    “There are no guarantees in this zoo.” He said. “I lost 8 people just yesterday because they wouldn’t listen. “ This daughter is what 22, 25 and a criminal?”

    “14, not possible,” Tommy snapped. “They would not push a 14 year old into this shithole.”

    “Snuck in! That is ridiculous. No one would sneak into this place. Are you calling from a radio show, your joking right.”

    “Your daughter is dead,” Tommy said. “Yes, it’s true. Your daughter has a 15 minutes time-to-live and that has passed.”

    “Your apparent sphere of influence has no bearing. The Maxwell-Carter family may have some pull outside the Zoo, but within these walls we make the rules.”

    “The Network can be a very powerful enemy, Mr. Carter. I’m just saying, be careful what you wish for… but honestly how much and why should I care?”

    Tommy gently tapped the glass on the whiskey bottle. Mary did her best to ignore him and pretended to work nearby.

    “I’ll get it myself,” he whispered and she countered by shaking her head no.”

    “500,000 credits?” Tommy said with disgust. “What am I going to do with credits. Toss them at the undead?”

    His words trailed off as he noticed an odd zombified creature approach the large restaurant window. He pointed with his free hand.

    Mary whispered, “I believe those are called satyrs. Half human, half goat.”

    “Looks like a demon,” Tommy replied while covering the receiver.

    The satyr had a horn twisting from the left side of his head and a second horn, broken protruding from the right side.

    It’s fur showed up in patches over its pale, dead human face. Open wounds tracing exposed compound fractures.

    “When did they start putting the Freaks in here?” Tommy said as he swept up the bottle of whiskey and poured a second shot.

    Tommy swallowed and Mary took the bottle from him. “Your not finishing this bottle,” she said.

    “I am listening to you Mr. Carter. You would like me to rescue your daughter and your daughter just happened to slip into a prison full of zombies… and other monsters… with a stone that has the power to create or take away life. So this is a mission to save the world. Did I get that right?”

    “Fuck off, with your goddamn super hero mission. I ain’t no super hero. Do it yourself then.”

    “I want something else. I want you to have me released. I want out of this shit hole.”

    “How did she get the stone.” Tommy asked. “A family of thieves, I see. That certainly makes this job more interesting and more valuable. The Stones haven’t been free from the Maxwell-Carter family for four years.”

    He paused, “Mr. Carter this must be embarrassing for you. You seem that type.”

    “No one outside the prison will not do shit for 50,000 credits,” he said, replying to Mr. Carson. “I doubt they would step into this zoo for 100,000 and they are definitely not looking for your daughter in West Ransom. They may take your money though.”

    The smell of candied apples drift into his nose.

    “Mary, can I get a plate of your awesome fried rice and a candied apple. I love those candied apples.” Tommy said waiting for a response.

    “Sure thing, I got you. Anything else?” Mary said.

    A glass of water, please.” Mary disappeared into the kitchen of the diner.

    “Are you changing your offer for this job, Mr Carson. You have no other options.”

    “500,000 credits, guaranteed by the Carter family and Northeast territory… Nice. Where do you believe they were heading.

    “That’s a three station hop and some of the most populated areas of the city. Still very likely she is already dead but I promise I will do my best.

    “How will you guarantee I get paid? I am on the inside of this hell on earth zoo. The Blackguards are corrupt as hell and I can’t get out.”

    “The Garden. Sure. The Network’s central station. I’ll meet you at the top.

    Tommy placed the phone on the receiver. “Looks like we have another suicide job, Mary. Can you call…”

    “They are on the way, already. Held up at station 11. Will be here in an hour.”

    “You are my favorite station chief, Mary and I love your apples. Gawd.” He said as he bit onto the candied dessert.”

  • Green’s Grocery

    Greens Grocery sat on the outskirts of a cluster of small villages in Waterloo township. An essential business supplying the township with canned goods, perishables and liquor. At least, that’s what Frank Green always assumed. Frank had, for forty years, thought of himself as an essential worker. If Frank ain’t working the township ain’t running.

    Six months to the day, the township stopped working. People stopped coming into the store. Frank knew why, he saw it on the news when the drugs stopped working.
    For years, the country had been abusing a drug called Inferno, an antipsychotic but tweaked on the streets to become the last, greatest craze. Antipsychotic became psychotic and people that used it began dying. To counter Inferno, the pharmaceuticals created a new drug. This drug resuscitated the users but eventually drove them further into a psychological rabbit hole. Several corrections later and we have an epidemic world wide.
    “A god-damn zombie apocalypse,” quoted some medical expert on the morning news.

    Frank donned a red shirt, tie and slacks. He walked down the steps from the apartment above to the store for another uneventful day. He entered the warehouse in the rear of the store and spent the next hour and a half preparing what he had left to be displayed in the aisles.
    Paper goods were still plentiful. Frank’s stacked a couple boxes of toilet paper, paper towels and napkins in a shopping cart and pushed it to the door. He unlocked the door handle, chain lock and rolled a large red tool box that blocked the door.
    Frank pushed the shopping cart to the West end of the store, near the coolers. The coolers had been off for months, along with the lights. frozen foods, milk and meat expired months ago. Frank’s priority was to prepare for the enviable return of civility.

    He turned down the last aisle and moved through, past the coolers on the left, then stopped in front of a trio of empty shelves. He placed the paper products on the shelves. When he was done the shelves displayed three packages of toilet paper, towels and napkins and a lot of empty shelf space. 
    Frank pushed the cart to the front customer service desk and entered. He dusted the large counter and the shelves beneath it. The cash register drawer was half open and empty of cash. Frank pushed the drawer closed but it reopened. He pushed it closed a second time then cleaned the shelves beneath. He stopped at a poorly built wooden box. He slid it toward the edge of the shelf and opened it. Inside was a revolver and an open box of ammunition. There were no remaining bullets in the ammunition box but Frank knew there were bullets within the revolver. He grabbed the revolver with his left hand, His hand began to shake. Frank opened the cylinder to verify. He found four rounds ready to use. He closed the cylinder and placed the revolver back in the box. He pushed the box toward the back of the shelf and finished dusting.

    Frank searched and found a clean rag, a bottle of window cleaner and a step ladder. He walked to the front of the store. The front window was plate glass, fairly thick. Two eight-foot by six-foot tall panes separated by a small strip. Frank placed the ladder on the left-most end and began cleaning from the top down. 

    The dirt and grime came free from the inside of the window revealing a parking lot of abandoned cars parked in front of the store. Like an old photograph, a tranquil scene within the center of town. Except, in reality, there was no tranquility. People of the village milled through the street. No one drove any of the vehicles. They milled with no destination. Something to do as they waited to attack anything not sick and brave enough to make an appearance. 
    “Living with such rage,” Frank’s thoughts began to surface. “What was it like trapped in a body or were they just insane? Did they have any conscious thought? 
    Frank caught himself staring out the window at a gentlemen in a three piece suit walking slowly past the broken window of Town Bar. The gentleman dressed to kill, clearly a visitor to Waterloo at some point. Maybe a groomsman at a wedding within the township hall. The gentleman passed the broken window of Town Bar, staring forward. A woman approached from the right. Staring forward and oblivious. The man in the three piece suit walking from the left. Eventually they met in the center of Frank’s view. The expected human behavior being to politely move but these two smashed into each other and became a mangled mess. Both managed to stay on their feet, by some miracle, freed them selves, then moved on. No apology, no angry glances. Just acceptance of anything that was… oh well.

    “No piss’n and moan’n all the time. Oh I didn’t get my donut with my coffee,” Frank says in a mocking tone. 
    The window was half clean when a metallic crash, somewhere in the rear of the store, startled Frank. Frank fell into the window with a thud but the thick glass held.

    The act of falling into the window and the noise it created frightened Frank more then the thought of what could possibly be in the back. He settled the ladder and stood near the top. His left hand still on the plate glass. The crowd outside began to become more animated, as if someone had shouted “Help!” and they all wanted to help. They began to search for the source of the noise. Their interest peaked Frank knew he had to be extra cautious to not confirm his location with another noise.
    “ I haven’t been hear this long and safe to lose it now,” he mumbled.

    Frank heard some of the boxed stock being tossed within the warehouse. He cursed in a whisper. 
    “If it’s Gary,” he said. “I’m going to lose it. I told him to stay in that room.” 

    “He never listens…”

    Another crash, followed by several additional crashes, prompted Frank to stumble from the ladder. The ladder stuck the front window. 
    Frank watched as a hairline fracture spread out from the impact. Outside the window, the infected took notice and began to inspect the front of the grocery.

    Blind, the infected, listened for additional evidence. They milled around the front of the store occasionally slapping the glass to prompt a response from any unfortunate frightened creature.

    Frank wasn’t frightened, he was pissed. His perfectly manicured situation was in danger.
    He was going to rectify this and take it out of Gary’s ass.

  • Teraphobia- Killing Barbara

    Featured Story

    Preface

    The stones fell from the sky. There was no storm, no burning trails in the sky. Nothing to prepare the world for the impact of three stones dropped by God. Each stone granted the user the ability to create life in exchange for a life. A cruel test for a human race with a violent imagination. Each stone decorated its own sphere of influence in its own way. The story below relates to the New York stone only.

    The New York stone was dropped somewhere in Central Park. The first, vampire, began as a reluctant cryptid. Prowling at night, careful to patrol and terrorize the forgotten population. With every bite it grew in population till the forgotten could hide no more. The human population in New York struggled to contain the epidemic but ultimately succeeded. The stone continued to grant life for a life and other strange creatures began to appear. The other creatures were destroyed as effectively as they could be by a human race that felt threatened. The stone continued to migrate through the city, state and East coast till landing in the lap of a distressed government worker. His wife, lost to Cancer, rose to her feet and began the infection that would destroy North America. The stone was lost in the chaos.

    Jacob and Michael

    Five years after the Vampire wars. Zombie extermination turned into zombie containment. Large cities turned into giant prisons that contain the zombie hordes and other undesirables. Jacob and Michael are a pair of unlucky original occupants of the city of Cleary. Both men, desperate to escape their zombie wives, hide in the unattached garage.

    —————————————

    “We can head back into my house. We can lock Sharon and Barbara in a room. At least we have some food in the house.” Jacob said as he stared through a grimy window of the garage door. Standing on a pair of milk crates.  “We should have enough room to run to the back door. There are only a few zombie outside the garage door. The back door is unlocked.”

    “No Jacob… What are we going to do? Lock them in the bedroom and listen to them scratch at the door for the rest of our lives? What if they escape? We would still have to kill them.” Michael shot back.

    “I know.  We have to do something!  We can’t stay here any longer.  It’s been two days. I am starving.”  Jacob stumbled from the crates.

    “We screwed up and left them in the house. What if they were still alive,” Michael snapped. “What if they are dead because we left?”

    “Michael they were both bitten and we left them in the house for two days.  They are not alive. They tried to attack us multiple times. Our wives are dead.”

    “Miracles happen,” Michael replied.

    “Are you from this world?  When is the last time you saw a miracle?  Zombie apocalypse kind of killed any hope of miracles.  Look, I had to strangle Sharon with a metal close hanger. Do you want me to describe what that looked like! Zombie skin, putrid… Barbara is the only one left in the house.  We just need to get to the house, put her down and find something in the cabinets. We still have the girl’s rations.”

    “Put her down? She is not a dog. I’m not even hungry,” Michael replied.

    “Liar!  You would rather wallow out here in grief till we die of hunger then run into Barbara and face the fact that she is dead. I should just go out this door without you.”

    Jacob rattled the garage door handle and banged loud enough to attract the nearest zombie.  Soon the blank stare and pale, naked eyes of a monster stared back’

    “Look Michael it’s my neighbor John.  Hi John,” Jacob waved at the creature in the window.  When it didn’t respond he banged on the glass. “Hi John!”

    “Stop,” Micheal said.  “You will attract more.”

    “Do you think about her? Sharon?  The wife you strangled to death?”  

    “Do you wonder if maybe she’s trapped inside her body?  Maybe they would find a cure and you just killed her?”

    “She’s not,” Jacob snapped.  “I swear…Michael”. Jacob paused.  “Sharon tried to kill me. She slammed my head against a damn cabinet. Look at their eyes.  No human in there. They’re all dead. Everyone. Sharon is dead.  Barbara is dead.”

    Michael walked into the darkness of the garage. He stood at a window at the side of the garage and looked outside.

    “Morning should be appearing shortly.  We could wait till morning then go?” He offered.

    “Why?  The zombies will hear us in the day and night.  No difference.”

    “Fine… What’s your plan?

    “I don’t have a plan.  All I know is we can’t stay here.”.

    “Fine, I’ll get the door. You bang on the walls near the back of the garage to draw them away from the door.” Michael pushed past Jacob and grabbed the door handle.  Jacob growled but did as he was told. He banged on the back of the garage. When Michael was satisfied enough of the zombies were away from the door. He opened the door.

    Jacob followed Michael from the garage.  They followed the house toward the back of the home.  At the first window Jacob stopped and looked inside. Michael continued to the next window and looked inside.

    “She was in there.  Her perfect hair drenched in dark clumps of blood.”  He searched till he found Barbara. Her face long and drawn down. Her jaw slack and her arms to her side. She stood staring at a dining room wall.

    Jacob watched the other zombies as Michael daydreamed. The zombie were blind, at least that was the assumption. The eyes were pale with a large cancerous colored orb in one or the other. The zombie hearing hadn’t changed from when they were human. Some heard better than others.

    Michael watched within the window.  “Barbara,” he whispered.

    She moved.  She brought up her right hand and brushed the hair from her face.  The outside world disappeared instantly. Barbara began to dance. She turned.  Her face was hidden behind long beautiful dark hair. She turned and turned again.  For a short time Barbara was alive, till Jacob stepped onto the heel of Michael’s shoe causing pain. Micheal lurched forward and banged his fist upon the glass window.

    “My god, why did you have to do that,” Michael shouted. 

    “Sorry, we need to go now, my pants are full of crap. I have a really bad feeling.”

    “You crapped you’re pants?” Michael asked.

    A large zombie approached from the front of the garage. Two more lumbered near them from the driveway.  Michael turned and stared at a face in the window of the home. Barbara, her pale eyes staring hungrily out the window, scratched at the glass.

    “Go.. go…” Jacob whispered and motioned for Michael to follow him toward the back of the house.  Michael ripped his gaze from Barbara and followed. The two men walked toward the back of the house, careful not to make any more noise.

    Jacob opened the back door and stepped inside.

    “I don’t want to do this,” Michael insisted.

    “This or die?” Jacob replied.

    Michael closed the porch door behind him and searched for a lock.

    “What are you doing? That door doesn’t have a lock.”

    “What do you mean, doesn’t have a lock?” Micheal growled.  The door was ripped from his grip and a large zombie stood at the entrance.

    “Why doesn’t this door have a lock!”

    Jacob struggled with the inside door knob.  The large zombie stepped forward toward the men.

    Michael shoved the zombie with his foot causing it to stumble backward.

    “Get the door open!”

    “I’m trying,” replied Jacob as the knob finally turned and the door opened.

    The large zombie stepped forward. Jacob disappeared within the doorway followed by Michael. Michael closed the door and locked it. and they both stepped into the kitchen. He turned the security bolt and added the chain.

    The large zombie began to bang on the back door.  Michael braced himself against the door until she walked into the kitchen.

    Barbara, her jaw broken and head disfigured stepped into the kitchen.

    Michael shoved his right foot against the door and looked at Jacob.  “What now, genius!”

    “I got this Michael.  I got this.” Jacob stepped forward with a baseball bat but didn’t swing it.  He placed the end of the bat on Barbara’s chest and pushed her back into the dining room.  Attached to the kitchen door was a baby gate. Jacob swung that closed and locked it.

    “I forgot we still had the baby gate, nice.” Michael said. “I do not want to kill Barbara, Jacob. I can’t do it.”

    “You are going to have too. That gate is not going to stop her and she will kill us both.” Jacob replied.

    “I am more worried about the Incredible Hulk right now than I am about Barbara. We need to block this door.”

    “We got nothing to block the door,” Jacob replied.

    “Are you joking? You talked me into jumping back into this house and you have nothing to block the back door.”

    “I have a duffel in the walk in. I will fill that up with food and we can find a way out.” Jacob disappeared into the walk-in. Michael stared forward. His foot still wedged against the door. Barbara stepped forward and growled when she ran into the baby gate. Michael wanted to confront her. Talk to her. Reason with her.

    “Who are you reasoning with,” he asked himself. “Barbara or some animal that wants to tear you to pieces.”

    “Animal?” He asked. “An animal, at least has some animalistic instinct. It has some sense of intellect. This creature is just out to kill for what? Pleasure, doesn’t seem likely. Look at her face,” Micheal continued to ponder. “It’s blank, emotionless, dead… puppet-like.”

    “A puppet? For who? God and his infinite cruelty? Is this some sort of omnipresent revenge plot…”

    He watched as Barbara leapt forward almost tumbling over the knee-length gate. The back door shook and pain shot up through his ankle.

    “Damn it,” Michael cursed. “Cursed world.”

    He turned, grabbed a mop handle. Threw it through the window in the door. The glass shattered. The mop handle struck the zombie in the throat causing it to stumble backward and over the wooden porch railing. Michael growled. He grabbed what was left of the mop and tossed it through the porch. He found the toaster and threw it through the door. The coffee maker…

    “Stop,” Jacob said standing nearby. “That coffee maker was a gift.”

    “I don’t care,” Michael shouted and the coffee maker shattered when it missed the window and struck the kitchen wall. Michael paced the floor. The porch creaked as zombies, attracted by the noise, begin to step onto the porch.

    “Do you really need to have a mental break, Michael… now!” Jacob shouted. “I think you woke up the whole neighborhood. Look there is John.”

    “You always have jokes,” Michael shot back as he limped away from the door. “My wife is dead, your wife is dead. Our children long dead and this door is going to break and the neighbor is going to kill us.”

    “Why are you not broken up over this? You killed your wife. I am staring at the rotten face of my wife.”

    “Right now, you want to ask me that now? We spent three days in a garage alone and you ask me this, now when the world is crashing down on us. You’re an ass Michael.” Jacob frowned. “You think I’m not broken. I haven’t cried over anything since Gregory died. I killed my wife easily with a metal clothes hanger. If that’s not broken I don’t know what else I could be. Can you suck up your crap for a couple moments so we can get out of here. If you will not kill Barbara I will take care if it. We need to get out of this room.

    “Touch here I will kill you with a clothes hanger!” Micheal replied, his voice shaking.

    “That would require you moving past Barbara and going to the bedroom to get a hanger. At least we would be doing something other than arguing here with John staring at us from the doorway.”

    “Your a mad man,” Micheal replied then approached his wife.

    Barbara stood at the entrance to the kitchen reaching forward.

    “She would be so pissed. She hated this baby gate.”

    Micheal stood just outside her reach and stared at her. Her opaque brown eyes stared forward. Her thin face growled as she strained to reach over the gate.

    “In the head, Micheal. From the side is the easiest,” Jacob offered. “Hurry up, they are getting this back door open because someone broke the window.”

    Micheal pulled a kitchen knife from his pocket and stood with the blade up. He stretched his right hand forward. Barbara grabbed the blade and pulled it from his grip. Micheal struggled to free the knife from Barbara’s hand as the creature growled and swung her arms. Blood trickled down her thin hands as he attempted to free the knife from her grip. She gripped the blade tighter. Blood traced dark lines down the chrome blade. Michael grabbed Barbara’s arm and she drew him closer to her open mouth. Michael let her arm go and stumbled back. He grabbed her arm again and released it.

    “Are you going to stab her or dance with her,” Jacob commented. “She has my knife,” Michael replied.

    “If she draws your blood you will be without a wife and a friend.” Jacob said then shoved Michael to the side.  He struck Barbara with a kitchen chair, digging a corner leg into the infected woman’s left shoulder. The weight of the chair melted quickly through the rotting muscle.  Barbara fell backward taking the chair with her. Jacob leapt over the baby gate and knelt on the chair.

    Barbara pushed upward on the chair with her free right hand. Jacob set his feet on her left side and pushed back.

    “Michael please…”

    The back door opened with a crash. John and the other zombies stood for a moment then roared forward. Michael leapt over the gate. He stared at his wife trapped beneath the chair. Michael watched as Barbara seemed too care little about the chair in her shoulder and more about attempting to bite his brother Jacob.

    Jacob leapt from the chair and grabbed the large living room couch. He pulled and pushed the furniture till it blocked the kitchen doorway. Michael knelt upon the chair and stared down at his wife.

    “Twenty years, Barbara. Fifteen of those years locked in marital warfare. Now, look at us. Some creature staring at me from under a chair.”

    “Christ, Micheal this isn’t that hard.” Jacob shouted. “This couch is not doing crap. They just knocked over the baby gate.”

    “Kill her!” He shouted. “Brother, I am running really short of patience and time.”

    Michael stepped from the chair and Barbara attempted to sit up. She lunged in his direction. Michael fell backward. Stood and pressed her to the floor with his boot. He pressed the knife into her soft flesh and waited for her to stop moving.”

    “They are moving around the couch,” Jacob said.

    Michael stood and faced the mob. Jacob handed him an aluminum bat. Michael swung at the closest zombie and connected with the bat.  The zombie stumbled to the side and knocked over a second.

    A zombie pushed through the crowd.  He struck the couch and fell. The couch moved but it held the others back.

    “Remember those… fun little movies we used to watch from this couch before we had monsters attacking us every moment of the day.  We were so lazy back then. Relaxing, watching stuff… doing nothing. Oh, and not killing our wives,” Jacob said.

    Michael squelched when thin boney fingers dug into his left arm. The daggers had reached upward from the corner of the couch. The zombie dug it’s long, sharp nails further into Micheal’s arm. Michael twisted.  He grasp the bone-like hand with his right hand and pulled. Pain radiated up his arm and into his shoulder. The nails tore large cuts into his forearm as the muscles in zombie’s hand stretched. A second zombie pushed forward and reached toward Michael.  Jacob swung. He struck the zombie and the zombie collapsed.

    Michael grasp his arm. Blood traced trails down his pale wrist. Something grabbed his left ankle and Michael froze. He looked down and shouted. “Jacob, she has my legs. “Barbara, her face unrecognizable had a hold of his right leg.

    “Get her off my leg!!”

    Jacob watched as Barbara sat motionless on the floor three feet from Michael. “She’s not on your leg. She is dead,” Jacob shot back.  “She’s not moving.”

    Michael pulled the sharp fingers from his forearm.  He retrieved the bat from the floor.  He shoved the couch against the wall. Jerked his ankle from Barbara’s perceived grasp. Jacob grabbed Barbara’s blood soaked dress and pulled her away.

    “Michael, you’re losing it,” Jacob stated. “Seriously thought I would be having the problems in this house.”

    The couch slid upon the floor. The zombies began to filter through.

    “Michael calm down,” Jacob said. “It’s fine.”

    ”It’s not fine!  This is NOT fine!”

    “Take a breath… Barbara is dead. We have to figure out how to get out of this.”

    “I felt her grab my ankles!  We have to get out of this house,” Michael said while scanning the front room.

    The front door was on the other side of the room but it led to a certain death and the kitchen was a no go area. Behind the two men was the main bedroom.  A large queen-sized bed sat in the center of the room. A window in the front wall and a closet against the far wall.

    ”Maybe, we should hide in the closet.”  Michael smiled.

    “Dude, not that.  Not now. Let’s block this doorway of the bedroom,” Jacob replied.

    Both men lifted the large queen mattress from the bed and stuffed it into the doorway.

    “Why did you not add a door to your bedroom,” Michael asked.

    “We have no kids.  We don’t need it.” Jacob replied.

    The men flipped up the frame and pushed it against the bedding.  Jacob grabbed a towel from the closet in the right rear of the room.

    Michael stood with his back against the mattress and frame. Jacob tossed the towel at Michael and stood beside him.

    “Wrap that up the best you can.  When we get out of here I will make you a proper dressing,” Jacob instructed.

    From above Michael’s head a thin, rotten hand reached up and over the wall.  It ran its black goo covered hand over the side of Michael’s face. Michael stepped forward, turned and growled.  “I am so tired of you monsters touching me! Stop touching me!”

    The wall built from bedding began to fall forward.  Jacob struggled to manage his end and Michael’s end fell. Zombies fell over the bed and tumbled into the room.  Jacob glared at Michael. Michael attempted to readjust the wall but the damage was done.

    Jacob wrestled with the bed frame to keep the other pair out.  He watched as the two zombies cleared their heads and stared forward. A simple sniff of the air alerted the zombie to the men’s presence and it started to move forward.  The other zombie followed soon after.

    Michael pointed the bat.  A zombie stopped after meeting the resistance created by the bat then continued forward.  The thin skin of the monster tore and gore began to cover the bat. The other zombie moved around to the left of the first one.  Jacob struggled to contain the other with the faltering mattress wall. The room constricted as the pair approached. One on the right and the other near the center of the room.

    “The window, we can go out the window!” Jacob shouted.

    “No way, it will attract more from outside. We will never make it through without being mauled,” Michael replied.

    Jacob shoved the mattress a final time followed by Micheal. The men then peered out the window, into the darkness.

    “I can’t see a damn thing, it’s still dark.”

    “Smash it!” Jacob insisted. He approached the zombie in the center of the room with the bat. He swung and struck the creature in the chest. It heaved a breath, stood for a moment then continued forward. Jacob swung a second time hitting the creature’s shoulder. The bat fell. Jacob’s hands shook.

    Michael tapped the window with his own bat putting a small hole in the center of the lower pain. A second tap shattered the rest of the glass. Michael pushed out the outside screen and stuck his head out the window. A pair of arms wrapped themself around Michael’s waist and he took in a panicked breath. Pulled from the window Michael turned and shoved Jacob into the opposite wall. Jacob tumbled into the wall and slid to the floor.

    “Dude.. no!” Michael warned.

    Jacob gasp then replied, “Ass… look.”

    Michael turned to find a pair of swollen hands grabbing at the meal that was in the window for a moment.

    “Damn…” Michael grumbled. “Frickn monsters. Five years Jacob! We have been in this crap five years. Monster invasion in New York City and now we’re are all in the soup. Brother…” He said to Jacob. “We are done.”

    Micheal squared up in front of a zombie. He swung at his face and stuck the zombie. It’s face twisted, the zombie didn’t hesitate and stepped forward.

    Jacob stood and prepared to attack the other zombie but his bat lay on the floor beside the creature.

    Michael swung again and his zombie fell. He banged the gore-covered bat on the floor. Moved to face zombie two, Michael swung and the bat became twisted in the rubbery arms of the reaching zombie. Michael watched the bat cartwheel into the wall. The zombie’s arms fell to its side at the elbow. It moved forward as if it hadn’t just walked into an aluminum fan.

    “What the hell, dude?” Jacob grumbled.

    “Hey, you did it first.”

    “Now what!”

    “We go melee,” Michael said as his took a boxer stance.

    “Like your cleric… what was it’s name Wisconsin. Remember that melee?” Jacob asked.

    “This is not a remember D&D moment Jacob!” Michael warned, paused then laughed.

    “Wisconsin was a good character name.”

    “Yeah, in memory of the state. Now it is part of the Northeast territory.”

    Michael struck another zombie with his fist. The zombie stared forward, as the right side of its head collapsed. The pain of the impact forcing Michael’s hand open and he finished the blow with a slap.

    The zombie stumbled to the right, opposite direction of Michael’s blow. It crashed into the bedroom wall. Hitting it hard with it’s fragile face. The profile of the creature’s face collapsed. Leaving a soft, gooey center and blood spread upon the wall as it slid down.

    Jacob swung next and missed. His fist skated over the zombie’s nose, breaking it easily. Jacob’s elbow followed and struck the zombie in the right eye. The zombie’s head fell backward. The rest of its body forward. Its rubbery arms flailed. Jacob and the zombie collided. The zombie’s head snapped forward. It’s right eye hid behind its boney socket. Its long grimy teeth struck Jacob in the shoulder. Jacob fell on his back. The zombie fell upon him but struck the hardwood floor with its forehead. The noise from the impact echoed through Jacob’s ears. The zombie skull cracked with the first blow. It shattered with the second. Blood sprayed the floor and covered half of Jacob’s face. Jacob wanted to move but his body didn’t. His arms and legs wanted to lay under the creature and think about this a moment. Jacob screamed at Michael as warm, retched smelling liquid, dripped upon his T-shirt and jeans. He tried to shove the zombie upward and right but the body didn’t move.

    Michael lifted the body and moved it.

    “Dammit Michael your not the only one that’s done with this crap. My god how much can I put up with. I’m done Michael!” Jacob replied.

    “I can’t do this shit anymore. My wife died twice everyone else wants to eat me. I’m going to just stop fighting.”

    Michael grabbed his brother and lifted him from the ground. “Stand up. We just gotten live.”

    Jacob shoved Michael’s hands away but his knees sank. Michael grabbed Jacob before he fell. “Jacob don’t be an idiot, now stand on your feet!”

    “I’m trying dude.”

    Footsteps approached the bedroom door and the blockade. A zombie fell forward the moment it attempted to step through it. A second appeared, paused and fell.

    “The closet…”

    “Your closet is great and all.  Who knows what you did in there… you spent a lot of time in there growing up but I ain’t getting eaten hiding in a closet,” Michael spat.

    Jacob smiled, “dude, if you only knew.”

    “I do not want to know what you did in the closet, by yourself when you were alone. Change of subject.”

    The two zombies, that had tumbled over the bedding blockade, began to stir. They stood upon the mattress. Attempted to move and fell. Three more stepped forward into the bedroom and approached the blockade. The lead zombie paused causing the second to stop suddenly and step to the left. The third slowed then stood and seemed to be listening.

    “IQ test,” Michael said while watching the trio attempt to navigate the obstacle.

    “Idiot zombies,” Jacob added. The closest zombie snapped at Jacob. Lunging from its prone position.

    “F-U Teeth mother–“

    “Let’s hide in the closet,” Michael interrupted.

    Both men skirted past the fallen zombies and the mess on the floor. Jacob opened the faux walnut closet door. Inside, an arms length of women’s clothing.

    “It’s her clothes,” Jacob said. The color in his face disappeared.

    “We have to move them,” Michael began to pull handfuls of the clothing from the closet and toss them behind him while Jacob watched.

    “No! Not the dresses! You’ll get them all dirty. They will!” Jacob screamed and attempted to stop Michael.

    “Jacob stop!” Michael replied. Zombies crawled over the mattress and approached the two men. They were a foot from Jacob when Michael grabbed his brother and threw him into the closet. Jacob inhaled Sharon’s scent as the material overwhelmed him. Michael joined his brother inside the cramped, dark room. He attempted to close the closet door but realized that the door was blocked by all the clothing. Michael listened as the closet door behind them rattled. The prone zombies used the closet door to help them stand. Michael tried to close the door a second time with the same results.

    “Jacob, can you pause your psychotic break and clear the floor so WE DON’T DIE!” Michael screamed. The zombie’s outside the closet clawed at the closed door and began toward the open door. Jacob recovered and shoved the clothing on out of the way. The door, free of debris, was jerked from Jacob’s hands. A zombie stepped forward and screamed. A guttural noise full of anger. Jacob felt hopeless as the creature lunged forward. Its hands raised, became trapped within the metal hangers that remained on the curtain rod. The zombie attempted to rip its hands from the trap but became more tangled. Jacob shoved clothing into the zombie. He pushed the creature and it tumbled backward. Jacob grabbed the closet door and closed it.

    The closet smelled of mold. Horrible creatures amassed outside the fragile doors. Michael stood at the left door. He held onto a thin aluminum handle that was screwed into the faux wood with two small screws. He took in long breaths and waited for their unavoidable fate.

    “We are screwed.” Michael said after a long while. Jacob did not reply. Michael knew Jacob was on the right side of the closet, but he couldn’t see anything. He could only hear him working on something. An occasional grunt then a crash that shook the entire closet.

    “What the hell,” Michael shouted as light crept through the bottom of the closet.  Everything within the fragile shelter shuddered.

    “I found it!”  Jacob shouted.

    “You found what, you’re dolly?  Your teddy bear… you always break under pressure Jacob always.  Remember that morning we went hunting with dad and you had a perfect shot.  It was right there… you choked. Remember Joann your first girlfriend…”

    Something grabbed Micheal by the throat and he gasp.  Seconds ticked by as the darkness took in deep breaths.  “Shut up Michael and listen to me,” Jacob said. “Your an adult and I’m an adult.  I know you are under stress and you lash out but personally I have had too much death and complaining.  Listen. I have a way out. I built a trap door in this closet when we were younger.. ie.. why I would hide in the closet for hours.  I wasn’t here. I was with Joann. Do you get it?”

    Michael shook himself from Jacob’s grip.  “Dude, calm yourself. Fine.” He took a breath and continued.  “You’ve had this hole in the floor here all this time. We’ve been adults for 15 years, parents died, you bought the house and you never filled in the hole in the closet?”

    “Michael are you coming or what?”

    “Yes, dude… get over yourself with this new sense of self… hell.  How am I supposed to see anything?”

    “Just head this way…” Jacob said followed by a curse.  “The hole is too small.”

    “Right, size of a twelve year old?”  Michael snapped.

    “Bend down here and pull up these planks,” Jacob instructed as both men tried to widen the hole within the floor of the closet.

    Michael pulled up the first plank with significant effort tossed it to the side then a second.  The closet door opened and the smell of death stole away any sort of hope that the two men would make their escape without any trouble.

    “Jacob, you are going to have to squeeze that tub of a body through that hole,” Micheal told him as he jerked on a closet rod. The clothes on the end of the metal rod tumbled into the darkness. The creature appeared within moments. Its shaded, murderous jaws chomped at the air. Micheal pushed the rod into the zombie’s face pushed it against the closet door. A second stepped into the darkness to reveal a perfect human face. It wasn’t gored or rotten. The only tell would be the blindness that cursed the creatures… if that was even a curse.

    Michael stuck that creature in the face, right under the eye and it fell over the other.

    “Micheal, I’m in let’s go,” Jacob shouted.

    Michael dropped the curtain rod. He found Jacob’s hand and arm waving from below the closet floor. The hole was just wide enough to fit his thinning waistline but not without some huge difficulties. He sat, with his back to the zombies. Michael leap to the dirt floor then stopped. A sharp pain erupted under his right breast. He screamed, looked down but couldn’t see a thing.

    “Jacob, something just stabbed me,” he grunted.

    Jacob crawled on his hands and looked up. There was barely enough light to make out the shape of a thin nail stretching outward and into Michael’s chest.

    “It’s a nail Michael,” Jacob told him.

    “Pull it out.”

    “I can’t it’s pointed up. You will have to lift yourself back up,” Jacob reply.

    Michael growled and cursed and struggled to stand. The distance to the ground was barely as long as he was tall and the effort felt herculean. He pushed his palms into the floor of the closet and pushed. Inch by painful inch he had risen till he could go no further.

    “You got to go higher,” Jacob said.

    Michael grunted and pushed till he realized that their undead pursuers were close behind him. “Damnit… do something Jacob,” Michael shouted.

    “Do what Michael! You need to push up!”

    “They are coming and I have my back to them.”

    “Push, Michael! Push!”

    “I can’t. I got nothing.”

    “Damn it,” Jacob cursed and crawled under Michael’s feet.

    “Stand on my chest, damnit!” He ordered.

    Michael struggled to find Jacob’s chest but stood upon his ribs once he did. Jacob grabbed Michael’s feet and pushed up. He waited till Michael cleared the nail then instructed Michael to hold while Jacob pushed the nail downward.

    Jacob barely finished when Michael fell. It was more of a crash as feet and legs tumbled over Jacob’s chest and head.

    Jacob woke up first, half buried in dirt and with his brother’s feet in his face. His face felt as if someone has superglued half of it together with rocks and other crap. He looked up at the bottom of the house. The jagged escape hole was covered in debris. Jacob could hear movement above the debris.

    “Wake up, Michael.” Jacob said as he shoved his brother. “We made it. Wake the hell up!”

    Jacob shoved Michael again. Michael growled.

    “Get the hell up, you lazy, fat tart.”

    Michael growled again and Jacob began to shake from the inside out.

    “No… no.. no. Michael you stupid ass. You will get the hell up. You will not be dead. Get up!”

    Jacob shoved Michael again. Michael stood on his hands and attempted to stand slamming his head upon the floor of the house. Jacob slid backward as fast as he could. Michael turned his head. His face pale and contorted in anger. Michael’s grey eyes turned to Jacob and he begin to crawl.

  • Killing Barbara

    Featured Story

    Preface

    The stones fell from the sky. There was no storm, no burning trails in the sky. Nothing to prepare the world for the impact of three stones dropped by God. Each stone granted the user the ability to create life in exchange for a life. A cruel test for a human race with a violent imagination. Each stone decorated its own sphere of influence in its own way. The story below relates to the New York stone only.

    The New York stone was dropped somewhere in Central Park. The first, vampire, began as a reluctant cryptid. Prowling at night, careful to patrol and terrorize the forgotten population. With every bite it grew in population till the forgotten could hide no more. The human population in New York struggled to contain the epidemic but ultimately succeeded. The stone continued to grant life for a life and other strange creatures began to appear. The other creatures were destroyed as effectively as they could be by a human race that felt threatened. The stone continued to migrate through the city, state and East coast till landing in the lap of a distressed government worker. His wife, lost to Cancer, rose to her feet and began the infection that would destroy North America. The stone was lost in the chaos.

    Jacob and Michael

    Five years after the Vampire wars. Zombie extermination turned into zombie containment. Large cities turned into giant prisons that contain the zombie hordes and other undesirables. Jacob and Michael are a pair of unlucky original occupants of the city of Cleary. Both men, desperate to escape their zombie wives, hide in the unattached garage.

    —————————————

    “We can head back into my house. We can lock Sharon and Barbara in a room. At least we have some food in the house.” Jacob said as he stared through a grimy window of the garage door. Standing on a pair of milk crates.  “We should have enough room to run to the back door. There are only a few zombie outside the garage door. The back door is unlocked.”

    “No Jacob… What are we going to do? Lock them in the bedroom and listen to them scratch at the door for the rest of our lives? What if they escape? We would still have to kill them.” Michael shot back.

    “I know.  We have to do something!  We can’t stay here any longer.  It’s been two days. I am starving.”  Jacob stumbled from the crates.

    “We screwed up and left them in the house. What if they were still alive,” Michael snapped. “What if they are dead because we left?”

    “Michael they were both bitten and we left them in the house for two days.  They are not alive. They tried to attack us multiple times. Our wives are dead.”

    “Miracles happen,” Michael replied.

    “Are you from this world?  When is the last time you saw a miracle?  Zombie apocalypse kind of killed any hope of miracles.  Look, I had to strangle Sharon with a metal close hanger. Do you want me to describe what that looked like! Zombie skin, putrid… Barbara is the only one left in the house.  We just need to get to the house, put her down and find something in the cabinets. We still have the girl’s rations.”

    “Put her down? She is not a dog. I’m not even hungry,” Michael replied.

    “Liar!  You would rather wallow out here in grief till we die of hunger then run into Barbara and face the fact that she is dead. I should just go out this door without you.”

    Jacob rattled the garage door handle and banged loud enough to attract the nearest zombie.  Soon the blank stare and pale, naked eyes of a monster stared back’

    “Look Michael it’s my neighbor John.  Hi John,” Jacob waved at the creature in the window.  When it didn’t respond he banged on the glass. “Hi John!”

    “Stop,” Micheal said.  “You will attract more.”

    “Do you think about her? Sharon?  The wife you strangled to death?”  

    “Do you wonder if maybe she’s trapped inside her body?  Maybe they would find a cure and you just killed her?”

    “She’s not,” Jacob snapped.  “I swear…Michael”. Jacob paused.  “Sharon tried to kill me. She slammed my head against a damn cabinet. Look at their eyes.  No human in there. They’re all dead. Everyone. Sharon is dead.  Barbara is dead.”

    Michael walked into the darkness of the garage. He stood at a window at the side of the garage and looked outside.

    “Morning should be appearing shortly.  We could wait till morning then go?” He offered.

    “Why?  The zombies will hear us in the day and night.  No difference.”

    “Fine… What’s your plan?

    “I don’t have a plan.  All I know is we can’t stay here.”.

    “Fine, I’ll get the door. You bang on the walls near the back of the garage to draw them away from the door.” Michael pushed past Jacob and grabbed the door handle.  Jacob growled but did as he was told. He banged on the back of the garage. When Michael was satisfied enough of the zombies were away from the door. He opened the door.

    Jacob followed Michael from the garage.  They followed the house toward the back of the home.  At the first window Jacob stopped and looked inside. Michael continued to the next window and looked inside.

    “She was in there.  Her perfect hair drenched in dark clumps of blood.”  He searched till he found Barbara. Her face long and drawn down. Her jaw slack and her arms to her side. She stood staring at a dining room wall.

    Jacob watched the other zombies as Michael daydreamed. The zombie were blind, at least that was the assumption. The eyes were pale with a large cancerous colored orb in one or the other. The zombie hearing hadn’t changed from when they were human. Some heard better than others.

    Michael watched within the window.  “Barbara,” he whispered.

    She moved.  She brought up her right hand and brushed the hair from her face.  The outside world disappeared instantly. Barbara began to dance. She turned.  Her face was hidden behind long beautiful dark hair. She turned and turned again.  For a short time Barbara was alive, till Jacob stepped onto the heel of Michael’s shoe causing pain. Micheal lurched forward and banged his fist upon the glass window.

    “My god, why did you have to do that,” Michael shouted. 

    “Sorry, we need to go now, my pants are full of crap. I have a really bad feeling.”

    “You crapped you’re pants?” Michael asked.

    A large zombie approached from the front of the garage. Two more lumbered near them from the driveway.  Michael turned and stared at a face in the window of the home. Barbara, her pale eyes staring hungrily out the window, scratched at the glass.

    “Go.. go…” Jacob whispered and motioned for Michael to follow him toward the back of the house.  Michael ripped his gaze from Barbara and followed. The two men walked toward the back of the house, careful not to make any more noise.

    Jacob opened the back door and stepped inside.

    “I don’t want to do this,” Michael insisted.

    “This or die?” Jacob replied.

    Michael closed the porch door behind him and searched for a lock.

    “What are you doing? That door doesn’t have a lock.”

    “What do you mean, doesn’t have a lock?” Micheal growled.  The door was ripped from his grip and a large zombie stood at the entrance.

    “Why doesn’t this door have a lock!”

    Jacob struggled with the inside door knob.  The large zombie stepped forward toward the men.

    Michael shoved the zombie with his foot causing it to stumble backward.

    “Get the door open!”

    “I’m trying,” replied Jacob as the knob finally turned and the door opened.

    The large zombie stepped forward. Jacob disappeared within the doorway followed by Michael. Michael closed the door and locked it. and they both stepped into the kitchen. He turned the security bolt and added the chain.

    The large zombie began to bang on the back door.  Michael braced himself against the door until she walked into the kitchen.

    Barbara, her jaw broken and head disfigured stepped into the kitchen.

    Michael shoved his right foot against the door and looked at Jacob.  “What now, genius!”

    “I got this Michael.  I got this.” Jacob stepped forward with a baseball bat but didn’t swing it.  He placed the end of the bat on Barbara’s chest and pushed her back into the dining room.  Attached to the kitchen door was a baby gate. Jacob swung that closed and locked it.

    “I forgot we still had the baby gate, nice.” Michael said. “I do not want to kill Barbara, Jacob. I can’t do it.”

    “You are going to have too. That gate is not going to stop her and she will kill us both.” Jacob replied.

    “I am more worried about the Incredible Hulk right now than I am about Barbara. We need to block this door.”

    “We got nothing to block the door,” Jacob replied.

    “Are you joking? You talked me into jumping back into this house and you have nothing to block the back door.”

    “I have a duffel in the walk in. I will fill that up with food and we can find a way out.” Jacob disappeared into the walk-in. Michael stared forward. His foot still wedged against the door. Barbara stepped forward and growled when she ran into the baby gate. Michael wanted to confront her. Talk to her. Reason with her.

    “Who are you reasoning with,” he asked himself. “Barbara or some animal that wants to tear you to pieces.”

    “Animal?” He asked. “An animal, at least has some animalistic instinct. It has some sense of intellect. This creature is just out to kill for what? Pleasure, doesn’t seem likely. Look at her face,” Micheal continued to ponder. “It’s blank, emotionless, dead… puppet-like.”

    “A puppet? For who? God and his infinite cruelty? Is this some sort of omnipresent revenge plot…”

    He watched as Barbara leapt forward almost tumbling over the knee-length gate. The back door shook and pain shot up through his ankle.

    “Damn it,” Michael cursed. “Cursed world.”

    He turned, grabbed a mop handle. Threw it through the window in the door. The glass shattered. The mop handle struck the zombie in the throat causing it to stumble backward and over the wooden porch railing. Michael growled. He grabbed what was left of the mop and tossed it through the porch. He found the toaster and threw it through the door. The coffee maker…

    “Stop,” Jacob said standing nearby. “That coffee maker was a gift.”

    “I don’t care,” Michael shouted and the coffee maker shattered when it missed the window and struck the kitchen wall. Michael paced the floor. The porch creaked as zombies, attracted by the noise, begin to step onto the porch.

    “Do you really need to have a mental break, Michael… now!” Jacob shouted. “I think you woke up the whole neighborhood. Look there is John.”

    “You always have jokes,” Michael shot back as he limped away from the door. “My wife is dead, your wife is dead. Our children long dead and this door is going to break and the neighbor is going to kill us.”

    “Why are you not broken up over this? You killed your wife. I am staring at the rotten face of my wife.”

    “Right now, you want to ask me that now? We spent three days in a garage alone and you ask me this, now when the world is crashing down on us. You’re an ass Michael.” Jacob frowned. “You think I’m not broken. I haven’t cried over anything since Gregory died. I killed my wife easily with a metal clothes hanger. If that’s not broken I don’t know what else I could be. Can you suck up your crap for a couple moments so we can get out of here. If you will not kill Barbara I will take care if it. We need to get out of this room.

    “Touch here I will kill you with a clothes hanger!” Micheal replied, his voice shaking.

    “That would require you moving past Barbara and going to the bedroom to get a hanger. At least we would be doing something other than arguing here with John staring at us from the doorway.”

    “Your a mad man,” Micheal replied then approached his wife.

    Barbara stood at the entrance to the kitchen reaching forward.

    “She would be so pissed. She hated this baby gate.”

    Micheal stood just outside her reach and stared at her. Her opaque brown eyes stared forward. Her thin face growled as she strained to reach over the gate.

    “In the head, Micheal. From the side is the easiest,” Jacob offered. “Hurry up, they are getting this back door open because someone broke the window.”

    Micheal pulled a kitchen knife from his pocket and stood with the blade up. He stretched his right hand forward. Barbara grabbed the blade and pulled it from his grip. Micheal struggled to free the knife from Barbara’s hand as the creature growled and swung her arms. Blood trickled down her thin hands as he attempted to free the knife from her grip. She gripped the blade tighter. Blood traced dark lines down the chrome blade. Michael grabbed Barbara’s arm and she drew him closer to her open mouth. Michael let her arm go and stumbled back. He grabbed her arm again and released it.

    “Are you going to stab her or dance with her,” Jacob commented. “She has my knife,” Michael replied.

    “If she draws your blood you will be without a wife and a friend.” Jacob said then shoved Michael to the side.  He struck Barbara with a kitchen chair, digging a corner leg into the infected woman’s left shoulder. The weight of the chair melted quickly through the rotting muscle.  Barbara fell backward taking the chair with her. Jacob leapt over the baby gate and knelt on the chair.

    Barbara pushed upward on the chair with her free right hand. Jacob set his feet on her left side and pushed back.

    “Michael please…”

    The back door opened with a crash. John and the other zombies stood for a moment then roared forward. Michael leapt over the gate. He stared at his wife trapped beneath the chair. Michael watched as Barbara seemed too care little about the chair in her shoulder and more about attempting to bite his brother Jacob.

    Jacob leapt from the chair and grabbed the large living room couch. He pulled and pushed the furniture till it blocked the kitchen doorway. Michael knelt upon the chair and stared down at his wife.

    “Twenty years, Barbara. Fifteen of those years locked in marital warfare. Now, look at us. Some creature staring at me from under a chair.”

    “Christ, Micheal this isn’t that hard.” Jacob shouted. “This couch is not doing crap. They just knocked over the baby gate.”

    “Kill her!” He shouted. “Brother, I am running really short of patience and time.”

    Michael stepped from the chair and Barbara attempted to sit up. She lunged in his direction. Michael fell backward. Stood and pressed her to the floor with his boot. He pressed the knife into her soft flesh and waited for her to stop moving.”

    “They are moving around the couch,” Jacob said.

    Michael stood and faced the mob. Jacob handed him an aluminum bat. Michael swung at the closest zombie and connected with the bat.  The zombie stumbled to the side and knocked over a second.

    A zombie pushed through the crowd.  He struck the couch and fell. The couch moved but it held the others back.

    “Remember those… fun little movies we used to watch from this couch before we had monsters attacking us every moment of the day.  We were so lazy back then. Relaxing, watching stuff… doing nothing. Oh, and not killing our wives,” Jacob said.

    Michael squelched when thin boney fingers dug into his left arm. The daggers had reached upward from the corner of the couch. The zombie dug it’s long, sharp nails further into Micheal’s arm. Michael twisted.  He grasp the bone-like hand with his right hand and pulled. Pain radiated up his arm and into his shoulder. The nails tore large cuts into his forearm as the muscles in zombie’s hand stretched. A second zombie pushed forward and reached toward Michael.  Jacob swung. He struck the zombie and the zombie collapsed.

    Michael grasp his arm. Blood traced trails down his pale wrist. Something grabbed his left ankle and Michael froze. He looked down and shouted. “Jacob, she has my legs. “Barbara, her face unrecognizable had a hold of his right leg.

    “Get her off my leg!!”

    Jacob watched as Barbara sat motionless on the floor three feet from Michael. “She’s not on your leg. She is dead,” Jacob shot back.  “She’s not moving.”

    Michael pulled the sharp fingers from his forearm.  He retrieved the bat from the floor.  He shoved the couch against the wall. Jerked his ankle from Barbara’s perceived grasp. Jacob grabbed Barbara’s blood soaked dress and pulled her away.

    “Michael, you’re losing it,” Jacob stated. “Seriously thought I would be having the problems in this house.”

    The couch slid upon the floor. The zombies began to filter through.

    “Michael calm down,” Jacob said. “It’s fine.”

    ”It’s not fine!  This is NOT fine!”

    “Take a breath… Barbara is dead. We have to figure out how to get out of this.”

    “I felt her grab my ankles!  We have to get out of this house,” Michael said while scanning the front room.

    The front door was on the other side of the room but it led to a certain death and the kitchen was a no go area. Behind the two men was the main bedroom.  A large queen-sized bed sat in the center of the room. A window in the front wall and a closet against the far wall.

    ”Maybe, we should hide in the closet.”  Michael smiled.

    “Dude, not that.  Not now. Let’s block this doorway of the bedroom,” Jacob replied.

    Both men lifted the large queen mattress from the bed and stuffed it into the doorway.

    “Why did you not add a door to your bedroom,” Michael asked.

    “We have no kids.  We don’t need it.” Jacob replied.

    The men flipped up the frame and pushed it against the bedding.  Jacob grabbed a towel from the closet in the right rear of the room.

    Michael stood with his back against the mattress and frame. Jacob tossed the towel at Michael and stood beside him.

    “Wrap that up the best you can.  When we get out of here I will make you a proper dressing,” Jacob instructed.

    From above Michael’s head a thin, rotten hand reached up and over the wall.  It ran its black goo covered hand over the side of Michael’s face. Michael stepped forward, turned and growled.  “I am so tired of you monsters touching me! Stop touching me!”

    The wall built from bedding began to fall forward.  Jacob struggled to manage his end and Michael’s end fell. Zombies fell over the bed and tumbled into the room.  Jacob glared at Michael. Michael attempted to readjust the wall but the damage was done.

    Jacob wrestled with the bed frame to keep the other pair out.  He watched as the two zombies cleared their heads and stared forward. A simple sniff of the air alerted the zombie to the men’s presence and it started to move forward.  The other zombie followed soon after.

    Michael pointed the bat.  A zombie stopped after meeting the resistance created by the bat then continued forward.  The thin skin of the monster tore and gore began to cover the bat. The other zombie moved around to the left of the first one.  Jacob struggled to contain the other with the faltering mattress wall. The room constricted as the pair approached. One on the right and the other near the center of the room.

    “The window, we can go out the window!” Jacob shouted.

    “No way, it will attract more from outside. We will never make it through without being mauled,” Michael replied.

    Jacob shoved the mattress a final time followed by Micheal. The men then peered out the window, into the darkness.

    “I can’t see a damn thing, it’s still dark.”

    “Smash it!” Jacob insisted. He approached the zombie in the center of the room with the bat. He swung and struck the creature in the chest. It heaved a breath, stood for a moment then continued forward. Jacob swung a second time hitting the creature’s shoulder. The bat fell. Jacob’s hands shook.

    Michael tapped the window with his own bat putting a small hole in the center of the lower pain. A second tap shattered the rest of the glass. Michael pushed out the outside screen and stuck his head out the window. A pair of arms wrapped themself around Michael’s waist and he took in a panicked breath. Pulled from the window Michael turned and shoved Jacob into the opposite wall. Jacob tumbled into the wall and slid to the floor.

    “Dude.. no!” Michael warned.

    Jacob gasp then replied, “Ass… look.”

    Michael turned to find a pair of swollen hands grabbing at the meal that was in the window for a moment.

    “Damn…” Michael grumbled. “Frickn monsters. Five years Jacob! We have been in this crap five years. Monster invasion in New York City and now we’re are all in the soup. Brother…” He said to Jacob. “We are done.”

    Micheal squared up in front of a zombie. He swung at his face and stuck the zombie. It’s face twisted, the zombie didn’t hesitate and stepped forward.

    Jacob stood and prepared to attack the other zombie but his bat lay on the floor beside the creature.

    Michael swung again and his zombie fell. He banged the gore-covered bat on the floor. Moved to face zombie two, Michael swung and the bat became twisted in the rubbery arms of the reaching zombie. Michael watched the bat cartwheel into the wall. The zombie’s arms fell to its side at the elbow. It moved forward as if it hadn’t just walked into an aluminum fan.

    “What the hell, dude?” Jacob grumbled.

    “Hey, you did it first.”

    “Now what!”

    “We go melee,” Michael said as his took a boxer stance.

    “Like your cleric… what was it’s name Wisconsin. Remember that melee?” Jacob asked.

    “This is not a remember D&D moment Jacob!” Michael warned, paused then laughed.

    “Wisconsin was a good character name.”

    “Yeah, in memory of the state. Now it is part of the Northeast territory.”

    Michael struck another zombie with his fist. The zombie stared forward, as the right side of its head collapsed. The pain of the impact forcing Michael’s hand open and he finished the blow with a slap.

    The zombie stumbled to the right, opposite direction of Michael’s blow. It crashed into the bedroom wall. Hitting it hard with it’s fragile face. The profile of the creature’s face collapsed. Leaving a soft, gooey center and blood spread upon the wall as it slid down.

    Jacob swung next and missed. His fist skated over the zombie’s nose, breaking it easily. Jacob’s elbow followed and struck the zombie in the right eye. The zombie’s head fell backward. The rest of its body forward. Its rubbery arms flailed. Jacob and the zombie collided. The zombie’s head snapped forward. It’s right eye hid behind its boney socket. Its long grimy teeth struck Jacob in the shoulder. Jacob fell on his back. The zombie fell upon him but struck the hardwood floor with its forehead. The noise from the impact echoed through Jacob’s ears. The zombie skull cracked with the first blow. It shattered with the second. Blood sprayed the floor and covered half of Jacob’s face. Jacob wanted to move but his body didn’t. His arms and legs wanted to lay under the creature and think about this a moment. Jacob screamed at Michael as warm, retched smelling liquid, dripped upon his T-shirt and jeans. He tried to shove the zombie upward and right but the body didn’t move.

    Michael lifted the body and moved it.

    “Dammit Michael your not the only one that’s done with this crap. My god how much can I put up with. I’m done Michael!” Jacob replied.

    “I can’t do this shit anymore. My wife died twice everyone else wants to eat me. I’m going to just stop fighting.”

    Michael grabbed his brother and lifted him from the ground. “Stand up. We just gotten live.”

    Jacob shoved Michael’s hands away but his knees sank. Michael grabbed Jacob before he fell. “Jacob don’t be an idiot, now stand on your feet!”

    “I’m trying dude.”

    Footsteps approached the bedroom door and the blockade. A zombie fell forward the moment it attempted to step through it. A second appeared, paused and fell.

    “The closet…”

    “Your closet is great and all.  Who knows what you did in there… you spent a lot of time in there growing up but I ain’t getting eaten hiding in a closet,” Michael spat.

    Jacob smiled, “dude, if you only knew.”

    “I do not want to know what you did in the closet, by yourself when you were alone. Change of subject.”

    The two zombies, that had tumbled over the bedding blockade, began to stir. They stood upon the mattress. Attempted to move and fell. Three more stepped forward into the bedroom and approached the blockade. The lead zombie paused causing the second to stop suddenly and step to the left. The third slowed then stood and seemed to be listening.

    “IQ test,” Michael said while watching the trio attempt to navigate the obstacle.

    “Idiot zombies,” Jacob added. The closest zombie snapped at Jacob. Lunging from its prone position.

    “F-U Teeth mother–“

    “Let’s hide in the closet,” Michael interrupted.

    Both men skirted past the fallen zombies and the mess on the floor. Jacob opened the faux walnut closet door. Inside, an arms length of women’s clothing.

    “It’s her clothes,” Jacob said. The color in his face disappeared.

    “We have to move them,” Michael began to pull handfuls of the clothing from the closet and toss them behind him while Jacob watched.

    “No! Not the dresses! You’ll get them all dirty. They will!” Jacob screamed and attempted to stop Michael.

    “Jacob stop!” Michael replied. Zombies crawled over the mattress and approached the two men. They were a foot from Jacob when Michael grabbed his brother and threw him into the closet. Jacob inhaled Sharon’s scent as the material overwhelmed him. Michael joined his brother inside the cramped, dark room. He attempted to close the closet door but realized that the door was blocked by all the clothing. Michael listened as the closet door behind them rattled. The prone zombies used the closet door to help them stand. Michael tried to close the door a second time with the same results.

    “Jacob, can you pause your psychotic break and clear the floor so WE DON’T DIE!” Michael screamed. The zombie’s outside the closet clawed at the closed door and began toward the open door. Jacob recovered and shoved the clothing on out of the way. The door, free of debris, was jerked from Jacob’s hands. A zombie stepped forward and screamed. A guttural noise full of anger. Jacob felt hopeless as the creature lunged forward. Its hands raised, became trapped within the metal hangers that remained on the curtain rod. The zombie attempted to rip its hands from the trap but became more tangled. Jacob shoved clothing into the zombie. He pushed the creature and it tumbled backward. Jacob grabbed the closet door and closed it.

    The closet smelled of mold. Horrible creatures amassed outside the fragile doors. Michael stood at the left door. He held onto a thin aluminum handle that was screwed into the faux wood with two small screws. He took in long breaths and waited for their unavoidable fate.

    “We are screwed.” Michael said after a long while. Jacob did not reply. Michael knew Jacob was on the right side of the closet, but he couldn’t see anything. He could only hear him working on something. An occasional grunt then a crash that shook the entire closet.

    “What the hell,” Michael shouted as light crept through the bottom of the closet.  Everything within the fragile shelter shuddered.

    “I found it!”  Jacob shouted.

    “You found what, you’re dolly?  Your teddy bear… you always break under pressure Jacob always.  Remember that morning we went hunting with dad and you had a perfect shot.  It was right there… you choked. Remember Joann your first girlfriend…”

    Something grabbed Micheal by the throat and he gasp.  Seconds ticked by as the darkness took in deep breaths.  “Shut up Michael and listen to me,” Jacob said. “Your an adult and I’m an adult.  I know you are under stress and you lash out but personally I have had too much death and complaining.  Listen. I have a way out. I built a trap door in this closet when we were younger.. ie.. why I would hide in the closet for hours.  I wasn’t here. I was with Joann. Do you get it?”

    Michael shook himself from Jacob’s grip.  “Dude, calm yourself. Fine.” He took a breath and continued.  “You’ve had this hole in the floor here all this time. We’ve been adults for 15 years, parents died, you bought the house and you never filled in the hole in the closet?”

    “Michael are you coming or what?”

    “Yes, dude… get over yourself with this new sense of self… hell.  How am I supposed to see anything?”

    “Just head this way…” Jacob said followed by a curse.  “The hole is too small.”

    “Right, size of a twelve year old?”  Michael snapped.

    “Bend down here and pull up these planks,” Jacob instructed as both men tried to widen the hole within the floor of the closet.

    Michael pulled up the first plank with significant effort tossed it to the side then a second.  The closet door opened and the smell of death stole away any sort of hope that the two men would make their escape without any trouble.

    “Jacob, you are going to have to squeeze that tub of a body through that hole,” Micheal told him as he jerked on a closet rod. The clothes on the end of the metal rod tumbled into the darkness. The creature appeared within moments. Its shaded, murderous jaws chomped at the air. Micheal pushed the rod into the zombie’s face pushed it against the closet door. A second stepped into the darkness to reveal a perfect human face. It wasn’t gored or rotten. The only tell would be the blindness that cursed the creatures… if that was even a curse.

    Michael stuck that creature in the face, right under the eye and it fell over the other.

    “Micheal, I’m in let’s go,” Jacob shouted.

    Michael dropped the curtain rod. He found Jacob’s hand and arm waving from below the closet floor. The hole was just wide enough to fit his thinning waistline but not without some huge difficulties. He sat, with his back to the zombies. Michael leap to the dirt floor then stopped. A sharp pain erupted under his right breast. He screamed, looked down but couldn’t see a thing.

    “Jacob, something just stabbed me,” he grunted.

    Jacob crawled on his hands and looked up. There was barely enough light to make out the shape of a thin nail stretching outward and into Michael’s chest.

    “It’s a nail Michael,” Jacob told him.

    “Pull it out.”

    “I can’t it’s pointed up. You will have to lift yourself back up,” Jacob reply.

    Michael growled and cursed and struggled to stand. The distance to the ground was barely as long as he was tall and the effort felt herculean. He pushed his palms into the floor of the closet and pushed. Inch by painful inch he had risen till he could go no further.

    “You got to go higher,” Jacob said.

    Michael grunted and pushed till he realized that their undead pursuers were close behind him. “Damnit… do something Jacob,” Michael shouted.

    “Do what Michael! You need to push up!”

    “They are coming and I have my back to them.”

    “Push, Michael! Push!”

    “I can’t. I got nothing.”

    “Damn it,” Jacob cursed and crawled under Michael’s feet.

    “Stand on my chest, damnit!” He ordered.

    Michael struggled to find Jacob’s chest but stood upon his ribs once he did. Jacob grabbed Michael’s feet and pushed up. He waited till Michael cleared the nail then instructed Michael to hold while Jacob pushed the nail downward.

    Jacob barely finished when Michael fell. It was more of a crash as feet and legs tumbled over Jacob’s chest and head.

    Jacob woke up first, half buried in dirt and with his brother’s feet in his face. His face felt as if someone has superglued half of it together with rocks and other crap. He looked up at the bottom of the house. The jagged escape hole was covered in debris. Jacob could hear movement above the debris.

    “Wake up, Michael.” Jacob said as he shoved his brother. “We made it. Wake the hell up!”

    Jacob shoved Michael again. Michael growled.

    “Get the hell up, you lazy, fat tart.”

    Michael growled again and Jacob began to shake from the inside out.

    “No… no.. no. Michael you stupid ass. You will get the hell up. You will not be dead. Get up!”

    Jacob shoved Michael again. Michael stood on his hands and attempted to stand slamming his head upon the floor of the house. Jacob slid backward as fast as he could. Michael turned his head. His face pale and contorted in anger. Michael’s grey eyes turned to Jacob and he begin to crawl.