Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (109 page)
Read Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy Online
Authors: James Roy Daley
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Anthologies & Literary Collections, #General, #Genre Fiction, #Horror, #Anthologies, #Short Stories
One afternoon, after the reburials had begun in earnest, Carl was touching up a hole when he saw Mike sitting off by himself on a rock at the edge of the yard.
“Everything dandy?” Carl asked, but was taken aback by Mike’s appearance. He looked sicker than any man he had ever seen. There was sweat on his forehead and upper lip, but Carl could tell it wasn’t the good sweat of work, but the kind that comes with brain fever. He looked so pale the light seemed almost to shine through him, and his breathing was labored and loud.
“Lord a’ mercy,” Carl said, and put his hand out to touch Mike’s shoulder. Mike shied away, and Carl withdrew with a raised eyebrow and a frown.
“You look sick, Mike. I don’t know what to make of it, but I think you’d best get inside and lie down.”
“I ain’t
sick
sick,” said Mike. “To be honest, right now I just want out of here for a bit. I want this over. I need time away.”
“Well why don’t you go, then?” Carl asked gently. “You’ve worked damn hard. No one can say different.”
“Because if I leave now this job is history, and I need it bad. What with the Depression on and a score’s score of people ready to take over if I up and run, I’d be a crazy to walk away.”
“Depression?” Carl said. “I don’t follow.”
Mike gazed at him long and hard, then motioned for him to sit down beside him. This time he didn’t shy away.
“I found something ‘bout an hour ago,” Mike said.
“Yeah?” said Carl.
“I found the updated chart of the cemetery.”
“Oh yeah?” said Carl.
“Just sittin’ there right as rain, a little stained but still readable, right on top of my desk like it had been there all along.” He pulled out a folded sheaf of papers from the front pocket of his overalls. “Here it is.”
“Well that’s fine, Mike, just fine. Now we can know for certain if we’re missing anybody. But I don’t see––”
“It’d please me if you took a gander at it. ‘Specially the bottom of the second page.”
Carl took the list, flipped to the second page, scanned it, and stopped short.
He breathed in and out, long and deep.
“My, oh my,” he said.
Mike swayed beside him, mopping his wet brow.
“Oh my,” Carl continued. “Oh my, oh my.”
~
“What you need, Carl?” Ted asked. Several hours had passed. Carl had taken some time to collect himself, then gathered everyone together on Mike’s front porch.
“Ted, Hugh, I got a question for the both of you. Before this job, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Hugh snorted. “You drunk, Carl?”
“I just wanna know.”
“Well… I…” He trailed off. “It’s kind of hazy, now that you mention it.”
“Ted?”
“Well hell, Carl, I guess my house and my wife and working in the mines. I got lotsa memories.”
“I know you do, but what about
right
before? What do you remember about the flood? Who came and told you we needed to do this job?”
“Oh, now, Carl, that’s easy… I mean… that is to say…”
Mike stepped in. “Hugh, what year is it?”
“1912,” Hugh said immediately. “What the hell year you
think
?” He stood up. “You’ve all gone crazy, I –
ouch!”
“Oh!” Ted grunted, grabbing his hand. “What’d you do that for?”
Carl held up a knitting needle.
“The year,” Mike said flatly, “is 1934.”
“Look at your fingers, fellas,” Carl said.
The two men raised their fingers. Eyes, suddenly wide, suddenly terrified, examined them closely. A thick, clear liquid dribbled down both hands in slow rivulets.
“Embalming fluid,” Mike said. “Unless I’m mistaken, I’m the only man here with a pulse.”
~
There was a great stir on Mike’s porch, and after the screaming and the exclaiming and the accusing and the shaking heads and frantic cries had ceased, three men walked the dirt road to Pineville and sought out their homes.
A short time later they returned, glassy-eyed and resigned.
“Now do you believe me an’ Carl?” Mike said.
Hugh and Ted nodded their hanging heads. Their houses were abandoned, their families gone.
“What year you say this is again?” Ted asked quietly.
“1934,” Mike said. “Pineville’s been dead since the early ‘20’s, when the coal gave out. I’m the only one here. All I do is tend the cemetery, see that no one bothers anything. Come from Pittsburgh, originally. Paid by the county.”
They trudged into Mike’s living room and slumped down in rocking chairs by the fire. Outside the wind blew cold, sending dried leaves scuttling across the porch boards and stressing the roof beams.
Mike said, “According to this chart, you all… er… passed away on the same date: May 23
rd
, 1912. You remember anything at all about it?”
They thought for a moment. “Come to think of it,” Ted said, slowly, “I do remember something… something about water. But it’s distant, like a dream.”
“The mines!” Carl exclaimed. “Culver Lake. The flood.”
“The roar… the rocks,” said Ted.
“By God,” said Hugh, “the collapse.”
“We all work… or worked… the same midnight shift,” Carl explained. “Looks like we didn’t make it out of that one with all our faculties intact, as the doctors say.”
Mike moaned. “This’ll teach me for not taking an interest in other people’s lives. If I’d only asked what you all did and where you all lived when you first got here… I just assumed you lived in Still Creek over the hill and were sent down to help. I never thought… that is, I never… I should have known when you was talking about Wilbur Collins. He died in 1893, and you all look so young, I––”
“Enough,” said Carl. “Don’t worry yourself over it. What we need to worry on now is the best course of action. There’s something going on here that ain’t natural, we’ve all guessed that since Day One, but now it seems we’re a pretty big part of it ourselves. Well, to be frank I’ve got to say I don’t think we belong up here, walking and talking, anymore than the rest of the folk out there who seem to be a tad restless too.”
“Agreed,” said Ted and Hugh.
“And I think we’d also agree that this is a fair bit, well,
upsetting
for us, what with us being dead and our families all moved on and away… Upsetting for our friend here too, who ain’t done nothing to deserve this kind of stress,” Carl continued, nodding to Mike. “So the sooner things get back to normal, the better. Now, we’ve laid out there quiet for twenty-two years and change. Why we up and walking again now?”
“The flood,” Hugh said.
“That’s how I see it,” Carl agreed. “The flood warshed us all up, something needed done to fix it, so we came back to ourselves. Taking care of this kind of thing is our job as volunteer firemen, after all.”
“Agreed.”
“But what about the others?” asked Ted. “Why are they up and about too?”
Mike said, “It’s like that saying my granddaddy was fond of, the morbid cuss: ‘The dead take care of their own.’”
“Sounds about right, given what’s happened,” said Hugh.
“Everyone out there in that yard and in that shed are doing their part, and we’re heading up the project,” Carl said.
“So all we got to do…” Hugh began.
“…Is finish what we started, and things’ll fall back into line around here.” Carl turned to Mike. “After all this, you mind if we stay on at the house a little while longer? That fire feels good, even if we ain’t supposed to notice such things in our condition.”
“Well hell, boys,” Mike said, and they were glad to notice the color had returned to his face, “I’d say you deserve that at the very least.”
~
They had the cemetery back in good order at the end of two weeks. Some gravestones needed replaced, including Carl’s and Ted’s (Hugh’s was found in a rain gully a short distance from the grounds, a little chipped but otherwise fine), but Mike made a trip over to Still Creek and came back with a half dozen new stones. Finally, on October 27
th
, they lined up in front of Mike’s cabin and looked out upon the graveyard, grass neat, stones straight, and declared it finished.
All except one thing.
“Everything trim and tidy again, everyone tucked back in,” Carl said. “Guess it’s time you saw us off, Mike.”
“Boys, it’s been my pleasure.” Mike shook hands all around. “You ready?”
They were. Three open graves lay side by side. Carl, Hugh, and Ted, dressed in smart, new tailor-made suits, climbed carefully down into the holes, minding the dirt, and lay down in the pine boxes they’d built for themselves the previous day.
“Feeling a bit tired, to be honest,” Hugh said, reaching up to close his lid. “Miss my kids. Maybe if I go to sleep I’ll see them again. So long, folks. Catch ya again sometime, I guess.” He shut the lid, knocked twice, and Mike stepped down and latched it.
“I guess all this was fitting,” Ted said, squirming slightly to get comfortable. “There ain’t many people left to look after us… It would’ve been too big a job for you to do alone, Mike.”
“You did great, Ted.” The lid creaked shut. Mike latched it.
Carl shook Mike’s hand again. “I want your honest opinion… You think this place looks good? Really good?”
“Even better that it did before.”
“An untended grave is a shameful thing. It was quite a shock, this, but I’m glad we came back to do it.” He reached up, grabbed the edge of his lid, and started to pull it closed over himself. “Oh, hey!” he added. “I almost forgot!”
“What’s that, Carl?”
“We talked it over, and if you ever need any help keeping your house in good order––a paint job, new roof, whatever—don’t hesitate, eh? We owe you.”
The lid shut. Mike latched it.
Later, he found himself whistling as he shoveled on the dirt.
The Basement
WILLIAM T. VANDEMARK
Julie screams. She’s in the kitchen.
I’m in the basement stacking canned goods next to bottled water. I glance up at a barred window. Outside, misshapen figures shuffle past. I drop a case of Dinty Moore and run to the stairs.
“Get down here,” I yell. “Right now, or we’re dead!”
Julie opens the door. She stands at the top of the stairs, pale with fear. She is claustrophobic. Yesterday, the idea of seeking refuge in a dank basement terrified her more than televised reports of zombies. This morning, the TV signal died.
Glass breaks––a picture window’s timbre.
I take the stairs two at a time and grab Julie.
I pull, but she won’t let go of the door jam. Behind her, a wreck of a body appears. From its face, tendrils of skin hangs like a spider’s web. The zombie, teeth sharp and broken, lunges at Julie. I yank at her, slam the door, throw the deadbolt.
A voice howls. Fingernails scratch at the door. The scrabble gives way to pounding.
I hit the door back. “Hah, you bastard. No way in.”
And no way out. I turn to Julie, who clutches one hand with the other.
“It’s okay,” I say. “We’ll just wait ‘till they go.”
I take her hands in mine. They’re warm and wet––slick, even; the top joint of her index finger has been severed.
I swallow hard, resisting the urge to vomit. “Please tell me I did that with the door.”
She rocks back and forth. “I don’t know.” Tears roll down her cheeks. They spatter on the floor with drops of blood.
~
Hair unkempt, Julie sits on the floor, rocking; her jeans dark with stains. Ropes bind her wrists and ankles to bolts lagged in the cinderblock wall.
With an X-acto knife, I slice my thumb and drip blood onto a sponge. I take the sponge to her cracked lips.
The whites of her eyes bulge like boiled eggs. As I paint her lips red, she shies away. Suddenly, I’m greeted with her amazing azure irises, the highlight of my day. For a moment she looks at me. I reach out, but stop. She’s trying to draw me in.
I’m under no illusion. If she had the chance, she’d sink her teeth into my Adam’s apple.
She licks her lips, her eyes roll upwards; the azure disappears as she looks into the top of her skull. She moans and her head lolls. Blindly, she snatches at air. Ropes tighten.
~
Outside, the world has fallen apart. My radio hisses static.
Inside, sinew and bindings still hold.
Time crawls, the world whispers, floorboards creak. All the while, the door thumps like an arrhythmia.
On good days, when Julie moans, I close my eyes and remember the times when such sounds came from other primal desires.
On bad days, I lean forward. Ever closer. Waiting for her hot breath to splash across my throat.