Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (25 page)

The high cackling laughter of a child, and the heavy crushing lope of the moose followed her. Rocks dug and cut the bottoms of her feet, limbs slapped at her face. As she drew closer to the van her legs began to cramp, threatening to drop her, and she knew she wouldn’t make it. Somehow she did.

She leapt through the open sliding door and turned in time to see the moose charging, Timmy Walker riding its twisted back like a demented cowboy. She grabbed the door handle and yanked it shut with the last of her strength. It latched home just as the moose rammed it.

Mona was thrown back against the van’s complex of recording and broadcasting equipment, and when she fell forward onto the van’s carpeted floor she was out cold.

Outside the moose rammed the van again buckling the side and twisting the door in its tracks. The boy howled laughter, screamed his approval in the language of the dead. After several minutes the moose stopped it’s assault, and the van stilled.

* * *

Mona awoke, head pounding, every muscle in her body tight to the point of cramp, her torn feet throbbing. She wiped sticky blood from her face. Her clothes, still wet with the foul pond water, clung to her like a second diseased skin.

It was night. She saw the lazy water of Campbell’s Pond reflecting moonlight through the cracked windshield. She also saw headlights.

“Mike,” she whispered. She tried the side door, but it wouldn’t budge. The back door was untouched, she pushed it open and stepped out fearfully into the night. It was raining again, lightly. A stroke of lightning lit the sky above, and several seconds later the boom of thunder followed. She found the KLUTV station wagon, motor still running, lights pointed into the deep woods. The driver’s door was open. The side and hood of the white station wagon was smeared with blood, a crimson trail led away from the car, toward the pond. She followed it with her eyes and saw Timmy Walker dragging Mike’s crushed and mutilated corps into the water.

Somewhere in the dark campground, unseen but close, the moose snorted.

The station wagon’s running motor, open door beckoned, and she ran to it. As she climbed in, shutting the door behind her, the boy screamed howled into the night. The moose answered with a grunt, and charged out of the darkness.

Mona put the station wagon in drive and whipped around toward the camp’s exit, tearing the passenger side mirror off as she scraped the side of an ancient and warped cedar.

Mona sped away, the dam that Preacher Campbell had built two hundred years ago of deadwood, rocks, and dirt came into view. She saw the moose just before it hit. With a strength she couldn’t fathom, the animal pushed her off the road. The moose collapsed in the dirt. Its neck was twisted and bowed horribly, snapped into an S shape. The station wagon slid sideways down the steep embankment and came to a crashing halt against the trees at the edge of the forest.

By the time Timmy Walker stood at the edge of the road, looking down at the wreck with a twisted, rotting smile, she was already gone.

* * *

Mona ran through the dark forest without thought, barely conscious in her terror. The trees and shrubs seemed to impede her willfully, slapping and cutting her, tangling her arms and legs. Making her fall painfully to the rough forest floor times without number. At some unremembered point she stumbled onto a trail and collapsed on a bed of dried pine needles, leafs, and moss.

She lay there for a while, watching the moon as it crested the trees to her left, glided across the weeping sky, and disappeared behind the trees to her right. At length she awoke to her surroundings, and recalled her last image of the psychotic moose; lying in a heap on the road, it’s neck snapped from the force of its attack on her car.

If the moose was dead she might have a chance of getting out.

On the heal of that, as if she had called down a curse with her optimistic thoughts, came the steady thump, thump, thump, of a heavy hoofed animal advancing on the trail.

Probably a deer
, she thought, pulling herself up with the help of a low hanging limb. She knew it wasn’t, those steps were too solid, like the beating of some gruesome underground heart. She saw its dark shape advancing on her, the boy riding its back like some demented junior range rider.

Its neck broke
, she thought, a new wave of panic rising within.
It can’t be alive––its neck is broke!

It stepped out of the darkness, into a patch of moon glow only feet away from her. Its neck was broken; its head flopped uselessly between its advancing forelegs. The large pitted antlers drug ground between them, digging a long divot down the center of the trail. Its tongue hung from the parted mouth like a piece of drying leather. It stopped a few feet away from her, lifted a hoof, and stomped the ground.

“Hey lady, wanna ride?” The boy leaned forward; laying belly first on the beast’s matted back, and beckoned to her with an outstretched hand. There were two voices, the one on top was a child’s voice, high pitched, amused. The one below was something else, a low moan that seemed to come from the earth itself, from the trees, the nightshade, the midnight sky, and the rain.

“What do you want?” She backed away, clutching at the foliage for support as she fumbled blindly over the uneven path.

The boy sat up, grabbing two fistfuls of fir, and tugged on them. The moose’s dangling head let out a snort, blowing up dried pine needles and twigs in a miniature dust devil. Then it advanced again. The boy leaned back on his perch and laughed with his two mingled voices.

Mona backed away quicker, moaning in horror.
“What do you want?”

“We want you.” The boys twisting, bloated lips didn’t move. Only the low voice spoke this time.
“Ride with us!”

“Leave me alone!” She turned to run, and felt something clamp down on her ankle. Small sharp teeth tore through skin and dug into meat. She felt a tendon snap like a worn rubber band, the pain like cold fire under her skin. She tumbled to her side, felt the wind forced from her lungs by the impact, saw the dead squirrel she’d found by the church earlier as it ran up her leg and disappeared under the folds of her skirt.

Then a blanket of shaggy brown fur and falling hooves, and the thick smell of carrion, blotted out the world. The last sounds Mona heard were the deep moaning from somewhere within the earth, the sound of stomping hooves and cracking bones, and her own pained screams.

* * *

Beneath the surface of Campbell’s Pond all was still, the muddy waters had settled, and through slimy green fingers of pondweed Mona saw what Preacher Campbell had diverted the stream to cover up those two centuries ago.

The graveyard had been small, dug in rocky, soured earth. Some of the primitive headstones still stood, but most had tipped and were covered by vegetation and silt. Many of them were open; a few were empty. She felt the deep pulsing in the earth beneath her, like a heartbeat.

She lay, belly down and still, like a fish on the bottom, her fingers dug into the soft mud. Her head was tilted up, and she watched with wide milky eyes as the sun rose in the world above, turning the surface from onyx to sapphire, to glowing, foggy crystal. Then the people came, as they often did.

She could hear them talking, laughing, yelling in surprise or frustration as they reeled in or lost their latest catch. She heard the splashes from above and around as the people above cast their baited hooks and lures, felt the ripple of disturbed water. She watched a bright silver can float lazily above her, reflecting sunlight on the water around it like fire.

At a nearby dock something broke the surface of the water, small bare feet. They kicked back and forth, stirring up weeds, scaring the fish away. She could smell them, the pleasant odor of vital flesh. She wanted to reach out and touch them.

There was a sting in her neck as a barbed hook pierced her skin and a pulling sensation as someone from above tried to pull her up. She struggled against it briefly. Then she felt the tension disappear as the line snapped.

Mona crawled across the bottom of Campbell’s Pond, toward the thickest concentration of the green aquatic vines, and slipped down into one of the empty graves.

There she watched, and waited.

Darkness Comprehended

HARRY SHANNON & GORD ROLLO

“And the light shineth in darkness

Yet the darkness comprehended it not.”

The Gospel According to St. John 1:5

“She’s turning Zom!” Kendall whispered. He had the reddened, richly veined nose of a heavy, lifelong drinker, even though he was still a few years shy of his thirtieth birthday. Zack Pitt stepped forward, heavy work boots crunching through the broken glass, and leaned down to have a look. Kendall raised his shotgun with trembling hands and pointed it at the dead woman.

“Put that thing down before you blow your dick off,” Pitt said. “Maybe she won’t make it all the way. Some don’t.”

They had entered the deserted supermarket in search of supplies. Pitt hadn’t seen her at first. The blonde, half-naked corpse lay beneath a huge pile of shelving and masonry, near some usable, if dented canned goods. Her breasts had flattened in death; the neck was broken, head lolling at an odd angle. At one time she’d been quite pretty. Pitt ordered the younger men to search for food while he guarded the entrance. He’d left Kendall to guard the body. Everything had been fine until she’d started moving again.

“Bart! Jon! You guys almost done back there?”

Muffled acknowledgements from the storeroom:
Almost done, boss.
Pitt wrinkled his nose. “Stinks in here,”

“Maybe it’s a fucking nest,” Kendall whispered.

Pitt grimaced and rubbed his face. The thought had crossed his mind. “Jesus, let’s hope not.” His vision swam out of focus, bursting into white dots before darkening. He lost his balance and stumbled a step forward.

“You okay, boss? You don’t look so good.”

Pitt shrugged and grabbed a plastic bottle from the shelf. He opened it and sipped some tepid water. “I’m just tired. I can’t seem to sleep through the night.”

Kendall’s eyes widened and he raised his weapon. “Damn!”

The dead woman was writhing in the rubble now, making eerily erotic sounds. Some plaster fell away, exposing her face. Rats had eaten away her nose and one blue eye was missing. Her teeth pulled back in an involuntary snarl. Her dress was ripped and shredded. She was wearing sexy, pink thong underwear.

Bart, a skinny teenager with long black hair that contrasted sharply with his pale white skin, came out of the back offices. He was lugging a canvas sack. Back before the world went to hell he would have been labeled a Goth, but now people belonged to only one of two groups: Us or Them. Bart said: “Scored some boxes of ammo, Mr. Pitt.” Then he saw the dead woman and cringed. “Shit, she’s turning.”

Kendall looked panicked. He started edging toward the door. “She’s almost all the way back, Pitt. For Chrissakes, do her!”

“No, the noise could bring more,” Pitt said. “Let’s just get the hell out.”

Just then the woman sat up, arms stiff at her sides. Her one remaining eye was spider-webbed with reddened veins. Her mouth opened impossibly wide and sound like the distant shriek of a hurricane filled the market. Time seemed to elongate and slow. Pitt found himself frozen.
I wonder what she’s feeling? Thinking?

Jon, a muscular black kid in his early twenties, came running into the market. He tripped over a box of cat food, regained his footing and closed the gap. “Shut her up!”

Kendall’s finger twitched. The shotgun roared. The top of the woman’s head vanished in a spray of blood, tissue and bone. Her body collapsed again and the room went silent. The four men froze in place and held their breath, listening with a desperation that transcended the senses. Their eyes met like football players in a huddle. They waited.

Bart was the first to speak. He brushed back his long dark hair and grinned. “I think we’re cool,” he said. He moved toward the plate glass window and peered out into the street. “Nothing happening outside.”

“It’ll be dark soon,” Kendall said. His face was pale; voice hoarse and crackled with tension. “We got a pretty good haul today, why push our luck?”

Pitt nodded, and decided Kendall would be replaced on the next run.
His nerves are shot. He’s losing it.
“You’re right,” he said, soothingly. “Jon, Bart, you move those boxes. I’ll take point. Kendall, just cover the rear.”

Each man dropped into position, Kendall visibly relieved to not have point. Pitt turned too rapidly and endured another wave of dizziness. He stepped out into the middle of the street, rifle at port arms.
Keep it together.
He searched the alleys for movement and trotted away through the trash and debris. Jon followed, wobbling along with a wheelbarrow full of dented soup cans; then Bart with three crates of powdered milk and a twelve-pack of cheap beer.

Kendall, still inside the nearly deserted market, turned his back to the street. He backed carefully towards the front door. He found himself humming tunelessly, some pop tune from the Twentieth Century,
baby, baby I think I love you
… He froze as two things struck him simultaneously. First, that he had not reloaded the shotgun.

Second that a nearby pile of trash had just…
moved
.

“Pitt?”

Pitt, across the street, stopped in his tracks and turned just in time to have another long, slow black-hole experience: Kendall fumbling through his suddenly bottomless pants pocket for some cold, tubular shells; meanwhile, a figure coming up and out of a huge stack of garbage, something that had once been a rent-a-cop. It still wore tattered strips of grey uniform and an absurdly comic hat with a shiny black bill. Then Kendall cracking open the weapon; the Zom on its feet and lurching forward while making that high keening a Zom makes when he’s starving; Kendall trying to load those shells with shaking fingers, dropping the first but getting the second; the Zom snarling and extending bloody fingers with yellowed and cracked nails, hungrily closing the gap.