Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (116 page)

Rufus could feel her quiver with fear. His heart ached to bursting, but he knew what he had to do. He pushed her away, stood and stalked towards the door.

“Rufus!” Mary shouted, but she didn’t give chase. She heard the door slam as the first tears came. It was as painful as the day they brought his broken body home.

Maybe worse.

Just as quick as it closed, she heard a knock at the door. She stood and went to it. The knock came again before she could get there. Mary pulled open the door and on her porch stood Rufus, propped against the frame, still dead.

“Widow Mooney,” he said with a nod.

Mary narrowed her eyes.

“Mamm, I’m sorry about your recent loss but I must confess that I’ve had my eye on ya for some time. Unfortunately, I have to go away for a while. I don’t know how long I’ll be, or if I’ll ever come back.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You seem… like a fine man.”

Rufus turned his milky eyes to the horizon and nodded again. “I thought maybe we could break some bread and watch the sunrise. One more time, before I go.”

ZOMBIE #3

About the

AUTHORS

Volume One

JAMES ROY DALEY ~ is a writer, editor, and musician. He studied film at the Toronto Film School, music at Humber College, and English at the University of Toronto. He is the author of
Terror Town, Into Hell, Zombie Kong, 13 Drops of Blood
, and
The Dead Parade
. In 2009 he founded
Books of the Dead Press
, where he enjoyed immediate success working with many of the biggest names in horror. He edited anthologies such as
Zombie Kong - Anthology, Best New Vampire Tales, Classic Vampire Tales
, and
Best New Zombie Tales.

RAY GARTON ~ Ray is the author of more than 50 books, including the novels
Ravenous, Bestial,
and the recently released,
Scissors
. Dozens of his short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies, and have been collected in five volumes. His novel
Live Girls
was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, and in 2006 Ray was presented with the Grand Master of Horror Award. He lives in northern California with his wife Dawn and their many cats.

MATT HULTS ~ Matt is a writer and artist living Minneapolis, Minnesota with his wife and two children. His drawings and fiction can be found lurking between the pages of such anthologies as
Fried! Fast Food, Slow Deaths; Harvest Hill; Undead: Skin & Bones; Horror Library Volume 2; Best New Zombie Tales One & Two, Northern Haunts
, and
The Beast Within
, which he also edited. His first novel, HUSK, was released by Books of the Dead Press in 2010.

JESSICA BROWN ~ Jessica is a lifelong fan of horror film and fiction and resides near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, only a few short miles from Living Dead ground zero. A short fiction writer and aspiring novelist, her work has been featured in Pill Hill Press’
Twisted Legends
collection and will be appearing in several Library of the Living Dead anthologies in the upcoming year. Her serial novel,
Rain
, can be found on Facebook and Textnovel.

KEALAN PATRICK BURKE ~ Described as ‘a newcomer worth watching’ (Publishers Weekly) and ‘one of the most original authors in contemporary horror’ (Booklist) Kealan Patrick Burke is the author of
The Turtle Boy, The Hides, Vessels, The Living, Midlisters, Masters of the Moors, Currency of Souls, Kin, Ravenous Ghosts
, and
The Number121 to Pennsylvania
, and the editor of the anthologies:
Taverns of the Dead, Night Visions 12, Quietly Now, Brimstone Turnpike,
and
Tales from the Gorezone.
Visit him at kealanpatrickburke.com.

JEFF STRAND ~ Jeff’s story in this anthology is so short that he’d feel guilty offering up more biographical information than a simple “His website is jeffstrand.com” so that’s all he’ll do.

ROBERT SWARTWOOD ~ Robert lives physically in Pennsylvania and lives virtually at robertswartwood.com.

GARY MCMAHON ~ Gary’s fiction has appeared in magazines and anthologies in the U.K. and U.S., and has been reprinted in both
The Mammoth Book Of Best New Horror
and
The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror
. He is the British-Fantasy-Award-nominated author of
Rough Cut, All Your Gods Are Dead, Dirty Prayers, How to Make Monsters, Rain Dogs, Different Skins, Pieces of Midnight, Hungry Hearts
, and has edited an anthology of original novelettes titled
We Fade to Grey.
Angry Robot/HarperCollins will publish the novels
Pretty Little Dead Things
and
Dead Bad Things
in 2010 and 2011. Visit Gary at: garymcmahon.com.

HARRY SHANNON ~ Harry has been an actor, an Emmy nominated songwriter, a recording artist, music publisher, VP at Carolco Pictures, and a Music Supervisor on Basic Instinct and Universal Soldier. His novels include
Night of the Beast, Night of the Werewolf, Daemon, Dead and Gone
and
The Pressure of Darkness
, as well as the Mick Callahan suspense novels
Memorial Day, Eye of the Burning Man
, and
One of the Wicked
. His new collection
A Host of Shadows
is from Dark Region Press. Shannon has won the Tombstone Award, the Black Quill, and has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. Contact him at harryshannon.com.

GORD ROLLO ~ Gord was born in St. Andrews, Scotland, but has lived in Ontario, Canada since 1971. His short stories and novella-length work have appeared in many pro and semipro publications throughout the genre. He is currently in the middle of a four book novel contract with Leisure Books in New York City.
The Jigsaw Man
was published in mass-market paperback in August of 2008 and his follow up,
Crimson,
was released in March 2009. His next two novels,
Strange Magic
, and
Valley Of The Scarecrow
are both being released in 2010. Besides novels, Gord edited the acclaimed evolutionary horror anthology,
Unnatural Selection: A Collection of Darwinian Nightmares.
He also co-edited
Dreaming of Angels
, a horror/fantasy anthology created to increase awareness of Down’s syndrome and raise money for research. He’s hard at work on his next novel and can be reached through his website at gordqrollo.com.

BRIAN KNIGHT ~ Brian lives in Washington state, where he drinks too much coffee, smokes too many cigarettes, and collects Hawaiian shirts. Visit him at brian-knight.com.

SIMON McCAFFERY ~ Simon is a 46-year-old former magazine editor who sold his soul to high-tech corporate America. He lives in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area with his wife Angela and his three amazing children. Writing and selling fiction since 1990, he owes his love of zombies, science fiction, and things that go bump in the day (and night) to his father, James McCaffery, who taught Simon to read at an early age and gave him a box of paperback books when he was eleven.
Something Wicked This Way Comes
was among them.

JOHN GROVER ~ John is the author of
Feminine Wiles, Whispering Shadows, A Beckoning of Shadows
, and
Tandem of Terror
. Residing in Boston, Massachusetts, he previously studied creative writing online at Boston’s Fisher College. He is also a member of the New England Horror Writers––a chapter of the Horror Writers Association. His short stories can be found in
Northern Haunts
(Shroud Publishing),
Zombology
(Library of the Living Dead),
Alien Skin Magazine, Morpheus Tales, Wrong World, The Willows
, and
Flesh and Blood Magazine
. For more information, feel free to visit his award-winning website, shadowtales.com.

JEFF PARISH ~ Jeff is a 30-something native Texan who tries to pound a little bit of English into the skulls of high school seniors in Paris, Texas. He and his wife have a girl and two boys. He started writing in middle school, where he concentrated mostly on (bad) fantasy tales and (even worse) poetry. His writing skills developed over time, much to his delight and the relief of everyone he forced to read his work, and he gravitated to prose over poetry. He started work at a small newspaper in Greenville, Texas nearly a decade ago. But his newspaper career was suffocated in its sleep in 2006 after he realized journalism might be a noble profession, but slowly starving his family to death was not. He’s had stories selected for
Flashing Swords, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Triangulation: End of Time, Bits of the Dead, In Bad Dreams II
and
Dragons Composed
, among others.

JOHN L. FRENCH ~ John is a crime scene supervisor with the Baltimore Police Department Crime Laboratory. In 1992 he began writing crime fiction, basing his stories on his experiences on the streets of what some have called one of the most dangerous cities in the country. His books include
The Devil of Harbor City, Souls On Fire, Past Sins
and the upcoming
Here There Be Monsters
. He is the editor of
Bad Cop, No Donut
, which features tales of police behaving badly.

KIM PAFFENROTH ~ Kim is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Iona College. He grew up in New York, Virginia, and New Mexico, and attended St. John’s College, Annapolis, MD (BA, 1988), Harvard Divinity School (MTS, 1990), and the University of Notre Dame (PhD, 1995). After writing several books on the Bible and theology, he turned his attention to the undead. He is the author of
Gospel of the Living Dead: George Romero’s Visions of Hell on Earth
(Baylor, 2006) - Winner, 2006 Bram Stoker Award;
Dying to Live: A Novel of Life Among the Undead
(Permuted Press, 2007); and
Dying to Live: Life Sentence
(Permuted Press, 2008). He lives in upstate New York with his wife and two wonderful kids.

CHARLES BLACK ~ Charles is the editor of
The Black Book of Horror
anthology series. For more information of the series, visit: mortburypress.com

JONATHAN MABERRY ~ Jonathan is the NY Times bestselling author of several novels, including
Ghost Road Blues
(winner of the Bram Stoker Award
), Dead Man’s Song, Bad Moon Rising, The Wolfman, The Dragon Factory,
and
Rot & Ruin
. His nonfiction books include the Stoker winning
The Cryptopedia, Vampire Universe, They Bite, Zombie CSU
and
Wanted Undead or Alive
. He has a series of Joe Ledger thrillers is in development for TV, and is the founder of the Writers Coffeehouse and co-founder of The Liars Club––a group of critically acclaimed writers who work together to support libraries, booksellers, literacy programs and a love of reading. Jonathan is a popular speaker and panelist at writers conferences and genre cons across the country. Visit him online at jonathanmaberry.com.

 STEVEN E. WEDEL ~ Steven is a life-long Oklahoman best known for The Werewolf Saga books:
Murdered by Human Wolves, Shara, Ulrik
and
Call to the Hunt
(Scrybe Press). His other books include
Darkscapes
(Fine Tooth Press),
Seven Days in Benevolence
(Scrybe Press) and
Little Graveyard on the Prairie
(Bad Moon Books). After many jobs, Steve is currently a high school English teacher; he holds a master’s degree from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Central Oklahoma. Steve lives in central Oklahoma with his wife and four children. Visit him online at stevenewedel.com.

JASON BRANNON ~ Jason is the author of
The Cage, The Order of the Bull
, and
Winds of Change
. Several of his books have been translated into German and more are slated for the future. When not working on his new book,
The Tears of Nero
, he can be found reading horror novels and playing loud rock music in rural Mississippi where he resides. He currently maintains a website at jbrannon.net where more information about his fiction can be found.