Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (113 page)

When Razor harnesses the courage to open his eyes again, it is to the same bleak scenario that closing his lids had blotted out. With dull, machine-like precision, the dead continues to strip the last of Sara’s meat from her bones, slurping the final droplets of blood from the hardwood floor. Some even suckle on her clothing––much as a baby would its mother’s bosom––drawing blood from fabric, or possibly even sustenance from the very scents that lingered within.

Razor whimpers. It’s all his body can muster as a response to the cruel play before him: an improvisation of insanity. All he wants is to be away from this ramshackle theater of the macabre. It, too, is a violation beyond reciprocation, a reiteration of the reality in which he is trapped. Scrunched into the corner, he wishes he were wood, wishes he were able to blend into the wall. His eyes flicker to and fro, still looking for a means of escape… when he spots one.

It glimmers, a winking reflection of light, a light at the end of the tunnel:
the hypodermic syringe
. Equidistant between the gorging horde and him laid the needle.
Naked and singing, singing to him
!
He instantly becomes transfixed on it, focusing to a point of blocking out the madness. The bogus barrier his mind creates gives the impression that it had eradicated the obscene exhibition, bringing down the curtain, but not in the purest sense. He can still see them, but now it is as if they are behind a TV screen––their usual mode of intrusion, cameras poking out of windows, or on top of buildings, peering down on the deluge––their heinous acts being transmitted from some place far beyond the confines of the studio apartment. They are real––
TV never lies
––but are no longer his immediate concern.

Razor crawls toward the syringe, oblivious to everything but the hypnotic lure of the needle. A needle that serenades him with promises of escape, of attaining the state of sweet nothingness he so covets. As his fingers pluck the syringe from its solemn resting place in the middle of the room, his wrist is roughly accosted by one of the dead. Illusory TV screens melt into pools of stark reality. A gasp squeaks from his larynx, a gasp of shock and futility. Worse than the cold, bony grip on his wrist, though, is the revelation within the syringe: it was empty. The promises it tendered, all counterfeit.

So why was it still singing
?

Razor breaks free from the skeletal grip, breaking a couple of bony fingers in the process, scampering rat-like to his corner. But it is too late. His scent is the only enticement they need as they crawl and stumble toward him. Intoxicated: caught in the forever feeding frenzy.

He jabs the needle into his arm. Something sharp to set him free––
that is all he ever wanted anyway
––but nothing. Again he jabs, repeatedly puncturing himself, ripping many holes like tiny, lipless mouths, lipless and laughing (
HAHAha
)… They all laugh (
HAHA
), drowning out the spiking pain. (Drowning…) Blood trickles like crimson streamers, decorating his arm with the appropriate attire indicative of the sullen celebration. Disillusionment blossoms on his face; a serrated slash devoid of verbal release blooms from his mouth. He continues to assail his arm with the needle; many more tiny, lipless (
mocking
) mouths join in the chorus of laughter (
HAHAhaHA-HAHAhaha
) that fills his head. The dead paws him, and swiftly indulge. Razor is impervious to everything but the morbid quest at hand, desperately jamming the needle with vicious intensity into his now mutilated arm, knowing full well that death is near––its imminence assails his nostrils, dulls his brain, his motivation quickly disintegrates into listless, automated repetition––and not wanting to face it. Not realizing that in death he will finally be set free.

(
HAHAhahaHAHAHAha
…)

~

“…as another day comes to a close, my friends, another day like all the rest, accumulating as scratch marks on the wall. I can only hope your day was as uneventful as mine. A tepid plea, I know, my friends. After all, misery loves company, but suffering is integrated into our very souls, woven into the very fabric of each of our lives. A neck within a noose––
waiting
…”

Memory Bones

MICHAEL STONE

The sickly butcher’s shop smell got stronger as he ascended the stairs. The carpet stuck to his feet.

“It be the bedroom on the left, Doctor.”

Messinger turned to acknowledge the speaker but he had already ducked from view. He muttered his thanks and continued up the stairs, his Gladstone bag bumping against his leg. A dust-dimmed window let in just enough light for him to make out two doors, one on each side of the tiny landing. He pushed open the door to the left.

The room stank of open wounds and wet bandages. Wrinkling his nose, Messinger peered myopically into the darkness, trying to discern edges and corners in the flat grayness.

“You must be the doctor.”

Messinger faced the voice and a bed coalesced in the gloom. “Ahh. Mr. Lode, I presume.” The attempt at humor didn’t bring any response. He asked politely if he could draw back the curtains. “I need to see you if I’m to examine you.”

There was just enough sunlight for Messinger to see a man propped by pillows, his body hidden by a high-collared, ankle-length nightshirt. The doctor smiled wanly. The nightshirt looked to be the source of the bad smell that pervaded the room. The patient’s age was difficult to determine––his hair was as thin and colorless as melting snow, but his long face was unlined, the skin around his jaw smooth and tight. Lode’s pupils were pinpricks in pools of baby blue.

Messinger sidled to the bed and eased himself down, placing his Gladstone bag between his feet where it clanked on a bedpan. It was then he noticed the scratches in the wall behind the bed: reminiscent of a prison cell, hundreds of short vertical strokes with a diagonal slash denoting groups of five covered an area of wall larger than the bed’s headboard.

Lode nodded. “Aye, he weren’t having you on.” Lode reached out and gripped Messinger’s wrist. “You’ve taken over old Dr. Dimmock’s practice, yes?”

The grip lessened and Lode settled back on the pillow, his blue eyes never leaving Messinger’s. “How old do you think I am, lad? You won’t find the answer in your notes so don’t bother looking.”

Messinger straightened up. “And why won’t I find any mention of it in my notes?”

“Because your predecessor made up a name and date of birth for me, that’s why. Like I said, he was a good doctor; I’m hoping you’ll be the same. Now answer the question: how old do you think I am?”

Messinger considered arguing that Dimmock wouldn’t have falsified Lode’s details because of the minefield of National Insurance, NHS records, vaccination programs and the like, but decided to humor the man. Maybe that was what Dimmock had done; humored him. It was a fact that consultations went smoother once one had gained the patient’s confidence.

Messinger’s eyes were becoming adjusted to the dim and dusty light now, giving him a better opportunity to observe the patient’s features: the unlined face and clear blue eyes that contrasted sharply with the thin hair and liver-spotted hands. “If I had to guess at your age, I’d venture that you’re somewhere in your early fifties, perhaps.”

Lode laughed. “Way off, lad, way off. Actually, I’m 149!” He laughed again, throwing his head back. Messinger noticed that his teeth were unusually small, very white and even. Lode’s laughter snapped off suddenly as he looked squarely at the doctor. “You think I’m mad?”

Messinger gave a non-committal smile. “That’s not within my remit,” he said smoothly. “However, I’m a busy man with a lot of patients to see this morning, so can we stop playing around?”

“I
am
one 149 years old. When I was born, Victoria was on the throne and Britain was at war with Russia. Just accept that. I could verify it by telling you loads of historical details but you would dismiss them as mere fancies learned from books. My bones are as full of memories as yours are of marrow jelly, lad.

“When I was in my mid-forties––I forget exactly how old I was––something strange happened. I fell under a carriage. It ran straight over my arm here,” Lode indicated a point below his left elbow, “severing it completely. I picked it up and ran home to my wife. Screamed my bloody head off, I did!” Lode chuckled at something he’d said before fixing Messinger with a searching stare. He shook his head. “Regular little doubting Thomas, aren’t we, lad?” He rolled the left sleeve of his nightshirt up to reveal a thick, ropey scar that circumscribed his forearm.

Messinger peered closer. “There’s no way they could have stitched your arm back on in the 1890s,” he said. “They didn’t have the know-how.”

“A sledgehammer, actually. Every other Thursday. He seems to think I might run away.” Lode sucked on his teeth. “There are times when he might have been right.”

Messinger jumped to his feet, unclipping a cell phone from his belt. He saw again the scratches on the wall behind the bed, and again he thought of a prisoner counting the interminable days of incarceration. The fives were arranged in columns of ten, and there were fourteen completed columns… making over 700. But 700 what? Days, weeks? Surely not months?

Messinger shot a nervous glance at the door as a floorboard creaked, and felt the fight in him drain away. “Ah, sorry. Wrong number. Yeah, my mistake. Bye.” He broke the connection.

Lode’s face softened. “Aye, lad, I know I’m asking a lot of you.” He looked at the doctor from under lowered eyelids and chuckled. “The best is yet to come.”

“I can’t wait.”

“I’ll ignore that. Anyway, Bessie and me, we kept the arm incident a secret. I lay low, hardly venturing out while the arm and hand were growing back. We nearly starved to death, with me not being able to go to work. Times were different then. That’s when we started the vegetable garden, all the way back then.”

Lode’s eyes clouded over. “Bess died in 1919 of ‘flu. Bloody terrible, that was. You young ‘uns don’t know you’re born, I swear. We weren’t any more able to cope with grief then as you are now, you know? Just because folks lost babies to disease and brothers and husbands to war, it don’t mean we became immune. I was one of twelve children. Only eight of us reached adulthood. My mother used to keep daisies in four little jam jars. ‘One for each of my little mites in Heaven,’ she used to say.

“But when Bessie died, I don’t know, I just couldn’t cope with it. I was an old man, what did I have to live for? In the end, I went down to the Cotton End Bridge.” Lode indicated behind him with a thumb. Messinger realized the man was referring to a bridge over a railway line that had served the local collieries. The track was long gone. He hadn’t even known before now that it had a name.