SNM Horror Magazine

THEME:

No One is Coming - Indy McDaniel - 2nd Place

Ye Sands of Time - Trevor Donaldson

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No One Is Coming

Indy McDaniel

The sound of the howling wind had been constant since the hurricane moved ashore. The shutters rattled endlessly. The impact of the heavy rain on the roof underscored them. Intermittently, cracks of thunder shook the small, two-story house. It hadn’t taken long for the power to cut out. Now Harriet Jones and her two children, Lukas and Jackie, were sitting in the dark, listening to the sounds of the storm. It had been raging for eight hours straight and it showed no signs of slowing down.

Hurricane Roland had materialized far quicker than the meteorologists had predicted, leaving a good portion of the St. Petersburg population little time to evacuate and even less time to batten down their hatches.Lukas barely had enough warning to drive down from Gainesville to look after his mother and Jackie. Despite his protestations, Harriet had held firm in her refusal to pile into Lukas’ battered Honda Civic and head north, out of the projected path of the storm.

Of course, Jackie had been no help as usual. Lukas wouldn’t have been surprised if his sister never left home. She was only nineteen for God’s sake. And the longest she’d been away from home was the one summer she’d gone to camp. She’d bitched so much about it that eventually their mother had brought her back home.

So when it came to leaving their home, the two Jones women were steadfast in their lack of enthusiasm. Whether there was a Category Five hurricane bearing down on them or not made no difference. They were staying put. Which meant that Lukas was stuck there with them. While he may have disagreed with his mother and sister’s decision, they were still his family. And since the death of his father, Lukas had - willingly or not - assumed the role as "Man of the House."

The house in question wasn’t large but it did have two floors, something Lukas was thankful for. Before the TV had gone out, there’d been reports of flooding in the area. He’d moved what little supplies they had up to the second floor but Mama Jones was determined to stick to the ground floor until vacating became absolutely necessary. She sat in her wooden rocking chair, casually swaying back and forth as she worked on a quilt she’d been knitting since Lukas had been in grade school.

“How long’s the storm gonna last, Mama?” Jackie asked from her spot on the couch. She was crouched forward and looked decidedly more worried than her mother. Her dark hair, like her mother’s, was pulled back into a tight bun. They even had similar outfits on. The only thing that detracted from their twin-like appearance was their age difference and Jackie’s eyes. She’d gotten her father’s eyes, a brilliant shade of blue. Right now they were sparkling with fear.

“Don’t know, honey,” Harriet replied, not even looking up from her knitting needles. “Doubt it’ll be much longer, though.”

“News said the storm stalled out,” Lukas interjected. “It could stay over top of us for days.” He looked between the two women. His mother carried on as if she hadn’t heard him but he noticed an elevated look of alarm on Jackie’s face. He got no pleasure out of scaring his sister. He was just trying to be realistic.

There was a loud crack and the sound of wood splintering as the front door was forced open by the one-hundred-fifty-five mile an hour winds. “Damn door,” Harriet muttered, setting her knitting aside. “It’s always giving me trouble.”

Before Lukas had a chance to get up from his chair, his mother had closed the distance to the door and began forcing it shut. She was pelted by heavy rain drops that quickly soaked her floral-pattern dress. The powerful wind was adamant about keeping the door open but the elderly mother was making headway against it.

Lukas was halfway to the door to help secure it when things went dreadfully wrong. The next several moments played out in slow motion for Lukas. He saw his mother turn her head to look out the front door. He saw her eyes go wide as she spotted something out there. Her mouth even managed to drop open and emit a surprised, “Oh my...”

Then the pointed fence slat slammed into her face. Standing behind her, Lukas saw the gore-covered tip emerge from the back of his mother’s head, spraying him with blood and bits of her brain. Lukas froze, unable to move as he watched his mother’s body go limp and fall halfway out the door.

Only Jackie’s scream of horror snapped him out of it.

Lukas took a step toward his mother’s body, intent on dragging her in and sealing the door shut. As he did so, he saw the flood waters start to pour through the open doorway. It wouldn’t be long now before the first floor was under water. His mother was clearly dead but Jackie and he weren’t. Turning from the lifeless form, Lukas ran across the room hurriedly. He grabbed Jackie, dragging her to her feet and tried to guide her to the stairs. She fought against him, trying to pull away, to get back to Harriet, but he tightened his grip on her arms.

“She’s gone, Jackie,” he told her in a firm voice. The sound of the wind was filling his ears, eating away at him. He wanted to turn and scream into the storm to be quiet and just shut the hell up. But his rational side kept him focused on the task at hand. “We can’t do anything for her besides keep ourselves alive. The whole downstairs is gonna flood. We have to get to the second floor.”

She still struggled but part of his message seemed to get through. Jackie buried her face in his shoulder, sobbing hard but letting him guide her to the stairs. He felt the icy flood waters flowing over his shoes and up to his calves. Jesus, they might have to get on the roof if it persisted.

First things first, he thought. Get upstairs. Jackie was still being difficult. She seemed to be shutting down. Letting out a grunt of frustration, Lukas lifted her small form into his arms and huffed it up the steps. Once he reached the second floor, he set her back down then turned back to watch water filling up the living room where he’d grown up. When he saw his mother’s corpse float by, he had to look away.

And still that damn wind was blowing…

*

Lukas had to drag his mother’s carcass upstairs. Jackie couldn’t stand the thought of her left alone in the flood waters. Still she wasn’t able to bring herself to actually help so Lukas was forced to drag Harriet up to the second floor one thudding step at a time. Once he finished, he collapsed alongside her, breathing heavily and soaked with water, sweat and splotches of his mother’s blood.

“I’m getting a change of clothes,” he told Jackie. “Don’t go anywhere. If the waters start to come up the stairs, come get me.” He left his sister and went to the small guest room where he gathered a small bag of necessities.

Jackie hardly noticed Lukas leaving. Her bloodshot eyes were focused on her mother’s body. She couldn’t look at her face, or what remained of it. Every time she tried to, she cried harder.

“Hush, child.”

Jackie gasped, startled into silence. That voice! No, it was impossible. She looked to her dead mother to confirm she was, in fact, dead. Then she turned her head, looking around for the source of the phantom whisper. She was alone in the upstairs hallway. She thought it might have been the wind but she couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling in her gut.

Several minutes later, Lukas returned wearing a fresh set of clothes. Jackie decided not to mention the whisper she just heard. Most likely he would call her crazy and just shrug it off.

Checking the level of the water and seeing that it hadn’t risen higher than the first couple steps, Lukas relaxed. Perhaps the worst was over. Given the fact that the ground level of their house had been flooded, they had scarcely any supplies and their mother had been graphically killed right in front of them. The worst was pretty damn bad.

“You should get some sleep,” Lukas told Jackie. “I’ll keep an eye on things.” He sat down on the top step and leaned against the wall.

Jackie hadn’t been tired until Lukas mentioned sleep. She didn’t want to go to bed, dreading the dreams that would haunt her, but she nodded and got up, heading to her room.

*

The storm had finally passed after a full twenty-four hours. Still, the bottom floor was badly flooded. The water had risen halfway up the stairwell before things had begun to settle down. The clearing of the hurricane hadn’t made things any easier. There was no sign of rescue workers. Lukas had gone up to the roof and used rolled up clothing to make a makeshift SOS to signal a flying helicopter or likewise airborne rescue craft.

Two days had passed and help had still not arrived. The meager supplies they had left quickly dwindled. Lukas’ attempts at rationing didn’t work very well and it wasn’t long before they would run out of food. Thankfully they still had a plentiful supply of fresh water upstairs but it wasn’t long before hunger was eating away at both siblings.

It took another night before Lukas brought up the topic of eating their dead mother.

Jackie’s face contorted into a look of horror and disgust. “Are you insane?” she gasped. “She’s our mother!”

“She’s dead, Jackie.” Lukas tried to remain calm but he could feel hunger-fueled annoyance boiling just underneath. “She’s gone. And if we don’t eat, we’ll be dead, too.”

“You’re sick,” Jackie replied, turning away from him. “I won’t let you do it.” She felt her gut rumble painfully and placed a hand over it, hoping her brother hadn’t heard.

Lukas moved over to her, grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her back around. “We’re starving, Jackie. We can’t leave. There hasn’t been any sign of anyone coming to our rescue. We have to save ourselves. This is the only way.”

“Stop!” Jackie yelled, tears stinging her eyes. “Just stop! It’s wrong! I won’t do it.” She had to get Lukas to shut up. The hunger was too bad. She didn’t know how long she could hold out and the thought terrified her.

Lukas wasn’t too keen on the idea either but the reality of the situation was clear. If they didn’t eat something – and soon – they’d become too weak to keep going. It figured that Jackie would try to make him feel like shit about the decision. He really didn’t need it. He already felt like shit. “Screw this,” he grumbled. “I don’t care what you do. Go starve to death in your room, you stupid bitch.”

His harsh words cut Jackie deeply. “Lukas…” she whispered, unsure what to say. She watched him turn away and go to the small cache of supplies they had. Crouching down, he shifted through the various items before coming up with a butcher knife. “No!” she screamed, rushing towards him.

Turning, Lukas barely had time to move the blade out of the way before his sister collided with him. She tried to force the knife from his hand but he gripped it tightly.

“Get off!” Lukas yelled, shoving her away. Jackie flew back, bouncing off the wall and dropping to the floor. “Are you totally devoid of rational thought? You could’ve hurt yourself.”

Jackie lay on the floor, sobbing. “I don’t want to do it, Lukas. Please, don’t make me do it.” The hunger pains were eating away at her little by little and she could feel her resolve flowing out of her with each breath. “God, I’m so hungry.”

“I’m not making you do anything, Jackie,” Lukas shot back. “I’m doing what I have to do. What do you think Mama would’ve wanted? Do you think she’d want us to wither away and die if there was another choice?”

“But it’s wrong!”

“Desperate times,” Lukas said coldly. Giving her a final firm look, he turned away and headed for where their mother’s body was as his hand flexed around the handle of the knife.

Jackie watched him go, her sobs growing heavier. Laying her head against the floor for a long while, she waged an inner battle between her morality and hunger. Slowly, she pushed herself to her feet and followed Lukas, cradling her rumbling gut. “I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

*

The first time they’d dined on the body of Harriet Jones, both Lukas and Jackie puked their guts out. The second time they managed to keep down their meals. By the third time they’d managed to push the fact that they weren’t just eating another human being, but their mother, completely out of their heads. But after that, her flesh had gone sour with rot and no longer did they have the luxury of consuming her withering carcass.

By the end of the week, Harriet had been picked clean and still there were no rescue crews in sight. It was the day after they had finished eating their mother that Jackie began to see her. The first time, Harriet had just been standing in the doorway, shaking her head. Jackie dropped to her knees and started praying. Lukas, who hadn’t seen the apparition, told her to shut up. When she hadn’t, he slapped her across the face.

After that, Jackie kept the sightings of her mother to herself.

Lukas had little patience for Jackie’s hysterics. Even though it had been more than two weeks since the hurricane had passed, he could still hear that damn wind howling in his ears. At first, he’d thought he’d gotten water in his ears but quickly threw out that theory. Dehydration causing auditory hallucinations was a possibility. They had water upstairs but they were rationing it so it would last and neither of them were getting as much as they needed.

It wasn’t until the howls began to sound like words that Lukas seriously considered he was going mad. The wind disagreed with that assessment. “You’re not crazy, Lukas,” it whispered into his ear. “We have always been and always will be. We are here to make you strong.”

Despite the reassurances from the wind, Lukas didn’t mention the auditory musings to his sister. She was practically useless as it was and he wasn’t convinced Jackie was completely sane, either. He heard her talking to herself when she thought she was alone.

As the days passed and his hunger grew again, the howls of the wind grew louder. More distinct.

“No one’s coming,” it hissed into his right ear. It was a raspy, masculine voice and it sounded vaguely familiar. “There’s no hope. No one is coming.”

Another whisper, slightly softer and more feminine, into his left ear added, “The whole world’s dead.”

“It’s just you and her,” the first voice continued. “And you’re so hungry.”

“So hungry,” the female voice repeated.

“She’d have never made it this far without you,” the male voice said. “She owes you.”

“Owes you everything.”

“So why should she complain if you took just a little nibble?” the male voice asked. It was so familiar.

The female voice giggled. “Just an itsy bitsy one. She’d hardly notice.”

Lukas’ eyes widened. He did know the voice. “Dad?” he called out, looking around the empty room. “Is that you?”

“Do it,” the male voice rasped. “Do it for your father.”

*

Just down the hall, the younger Jones sibling was trying to come to terms with the reality that her cannibalism by necessity had not only made her a haunted woman but had very likely damned her immortal soul to the fiery bowels of Hell.

Despite being a victim of cannibalism, their mother reassured. “Child, you ain’t gonna die for a long time now,” the woman said reassuringly as she strode around her daughter’s bedroom. She looked the same way as when she died, excepting the hunk of wood through her head. Same floral-pattern dress, hair still up in a bun. She was even carrying her knitting needles.

“Long as you keep an eye on that damn fool brother of yours,” Harriet continued. “That boy just ain’t thinkin’ right lately.”

“He was right about leaving,” Jackie cut in. “If we’d left, you wouldn’t be –“  She couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“Hush, child,” Harriet told her daughter firmly. “Dead’s dead and that’s that. Good Lord would’ve found me here or on the road so there’s no use crying about it now.”

Jackie nodded, lowering her eyes to the floor. “’Spose you’re right,” she conceded. “But what can I do about Lukas? He’s so much stronger than me.”

“That’s a load of poppycock, child,” Harriet shook her head. “You always been stronger than that boy. He just acts the part. The time comes and you’ll know what has to be done.”

*

That time came the next night, just after sundown. The howling whispers had been eating away at Lukas the whole day. He wasn’t sure if the male voice really was his father but it didn’t matter. It held that same tone of authority with just the right blend of dangerous. Like if he didn’t do what the voice said, it would pull down his pants and take a belt to his ass.

And he was so hungry. It helped to weaken his resolve. Of course, Jackie was just meat. Just another step on the road to survival. That’s what the world had become since Hurricane Roland had wiped it clean. Survival of the fittest. Was there any denying he was more fit than his sister? Then why shouldn’t he take what he could?

The female voice was right there with him, egging him on. If anything, it was worse than the voice of his father. He didn’t recognize the woman’s voice at all. It was light and playful, almost like a child’s, except it could turn deadly seductive at the drop of a pin. At one point, the female voice had taken a break from trying to convince him to eat his sister and instead whispered all the things she would have done to him if she only had a corporeal form.

Lukas had locked himself in the bathroom for a half hour and came out covered in sweat and feeling even hungrier.

At 10:13pm, he finally snapped. Jackie shrieked as Lukas kicked in her bedroom door. “Lukas, what are you doing?” she yelled at him, part of her already knowing. The look of hunger in his eyes was unmistakable.

Lukas didn’t respond. He could barely hear Jackie’s words over the screams of the voices. They were both yelling at him now, into each ear. It felt as if the hurricane had returned and had come to a halting stop right inside his head.

“Eat her!” his father yelled.

“Rip her to bits!” the woman screamed.

“Gnaw on her  tender flesh! Crush her bones!” said both.

Lukas’ hands clenched into fists and he actually growled. It was a feral sound coming from the pit of his chest. Jackie’s fear escalated as she watched her only brother devolve from man to beast. It wasn’t a physical change. She was sure she could have handled it better if he’d transformed into some kind of physical monster. This was a mental change. From the point of time the growl began to its end, Jackie watched her brother disappear, replaced by this savage beast.

Then he was on her. He rushed across the room in a flash. His hands grabbed her shoulders and shoved her down onto the bed. Jackie flailed her arms; her blue eyes wide with horror as she screamed into her brother’s snarling face. Her mother had been wrong. There was no way that she could fight him off.

Lukas’ eyes roamed, no longer seeing the young, terrified girl underneath him as his sister -- but simply meat. Food. His mouth watered, saliva foaming from his lips and splattering against Jackie’s face. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from it; her disgust clear. Lukas’ attack was stalled as he looked at her, distracted by all the bits that looked tasty. He simply didn’t know where to start his meal.

“Eat her, son!” his father howled into his right ear.

“Chomp right through her!” the woman agreed. “From her big dumb head to her squiggly little toes!”

Not wanting to disappoint his father or his new-found spectral lover, Lukas dove forward. His teeth touched against Jackie’s forehead and he dug in. Jackie shrieked as she felt her brother’s teeth pierce her skin. Hot blood poured down her face, getting into her eyes and obscuring her vision.

Lukas pulled back, a large flap of her dark skin between his teeth. Chewing the skin, he quickly swallowed it, looking down at his bloody, crying sister. He could see part of her skull through the wound he’d just opened in her forehead. Maybe head to toe wasn’t the best strategy. He needed something softer, easier to tear through.

His eyes fell to Jackie’s chest, rising and falling rapidly. Lukas’ mouth curved into a wide grin; his pearly whites stained scarlet red. Before she could try to stop him, Lukas grabbed the front of Jackie’s shirt and tore downwards. The sound of ripping fabric filled the air and then his sister’s medium-sized breasts were exposed. His head moved down, teeth clamping down around one of her dark nipples and beginning to pull back.

Jackie howled with pain as she felt her breast being mauled. She beat her hands against the back of Lukas’ head, trying to get him to stop. When that didn’t work, she began to reach around her, trying to find some object – any object – that she could use as a weapon. As the pain in her breast grew, her hand fell against something thin and long.

Not knowing what it was and not caring, she gripped it tightly. There was another ripping sound. This time it was decidedly more wet and underscored by a high-pitched scream of agony from Jackie’s lips. She stared in horrified disbelief through tear-streaked eyes as her brother chewed slowly on her severed nipple, savoring the taste.

“Do it, baby,” Jackie heard her mother say. “He’s nothing but a mad dog now. Nothing to do ‘bout a mad dog ‘cept put ‘em down.”

With a scream of rage and sadness, Jackie brought the knitting needle around and slammed it through Lukas’ right ear. The sharp point impaled his head and exited through his left ear. Her brother’s eyes widened with shock. His mouth fell open with the partially chewed remains of her nipple dropping out.

Even with the needle skewering his brain, Lukas still managed to remain alive long enough to mutter, “It’s gone. There’s no more wind.” Then he did a face plant, landing on top of his sobbing sister. She had no idea what the words meant. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

*

The rescue workers arrived the next morning. They found the young black woman sitting cross-legged on her bed. The half-eaten remains of her brother lay beside her. Jackie looked up at the two men who entered her room with wild eyes. She hadn’t replaced her torn shirt. Dried blood caked her chest and face; chest still exposed with gauze mummifying her torso from her makeshift first aid attempt.

“Jesus!” Carter gasped, seeing the wounded girl. He rushed towards her, reaching for his medical kit. “It’s going to be alright, ma’am. We’re here to help.”

Carter got within a foot of the bed when Jackie let out a screech. It grated against the men's ears, filling them with primordial fear. Jackie launched herself from the bed with the fluid-like movements of an attacking panther.

She tackled Carter to the ground, screaming into his face before burying her teeth in his neck. She bit down with enough force to crush his windpipe and then yanked back, tearing it sloppily from his throat.

Carter’s face went pale as dark blood gushed from his torn neck. He gurgled as more blood spilled from his lips. His face quickly grew slack, freezing into a look of frozen shock. Jackie went in for another bite as her paralyzed victim frothed and regurgitated his air like a murky soup. She felt a sharp pain against the back of her head. Then her world went black.

McPherson stood over the bodies of the knocked out black girl and his dead partner, breathing heavily. He clutched his baton tightly, his fingernails digging into the palm of his hand.

“Stupid, Carter,” he managed to mutter. “Very stupid.” They’d cleared three houses prior to the Jones’ home. This was the first time they’d found a survivor but they’d all heard the first response reports. The ones that told them about the storm survivors. So far, all of them had gone completely insane.

McPherson radioed in, requesting a body bag. And a set of restraints.

*

 

Sanctuary of the Damned

Cynthia Witherspoon

The purple bruising covering my arms spread quickly enough to cover my hands within a matter of days and became the sentence of my death. No fancy trial, no dramatic duel to right a wrong done against me, nor any glorious battle where I would fall declaring my love for Italy. It was just a simple bruising that would not disappear. It has forever marked me as an enemy to be condemned amongst my peers.

Tried though I might, no apothecary created a powder strong enough to cover the darkening skin and no leather worker with the thinnest calfskin could fashion a set of gloves just gentle enough to ease the aching of my bones long enough to escape notice in the cobbled streets of Venice, still skittish after the last outbreak of the Black Death some two years before. Thus I was forced to conceal my ailment within the confines provided by my linen cloak, praying to Our Dear Lady the Virgin that the skin would heal back to its former pale shade.

Yet, just as with all the others – some forty-six thousand dead – the Virgin had determined that I was unfit to serve in Her Church or Her army; Her holy ears deaf to my pleas whispered against the cold stone of the Chapel floor each morning and night since I had discovered the symptom. Although I had begun my life in seminary, leaving only to fight Italy's war, the Devil had been able to sink his teeth into my soul and hold tight. Perhaps it occurred one night over the gambling table. Or perhaps while I enjoyed the pleasures offered by the French women captured. It was of little matter now; the whens and the whys. I was slated to die, and soon, of a very painful death.

Yet I still hoped, still believed, that Mother Mary would forgive and grant a reprieve through Her healing grace. I was cursed enough to have the plague.  Surely that was enough so that She would preserve my place in Heaven. 

How could I have known that Satan's own soldiers had fought alongside of us on the battlefields of France? How could I – a simple man – understand what dangers had posed themselves to me on those lands soaked with blood, or of the minions sent to snare my soul?

Even with these thoughts, even with this knowledge, it was still a surprise to find that a child would be the one sent to turn me over to the men of the court. He collided against me in the early hours of that fateful morning as I moved through the fog towards the Cathedral of Venice in order to plead my case once more before the Virgin. The skin on my arms had begun to rot, attaching itself to the sleeves of my undershirt with each movement made, and thus, I was more desperate than ever for Her healing grace. I was young enough and arrogant enough to believe that She would intercede on my behalf. Yet the Devil was quicker; as he always seemed to be.

As the boy slammed against me, I grabbed him out of instinct, unaware of the lamps still lit in the darkness of the fog. I let the rage that had saved my life more than once strengthen my bones while I pushed him away. I raised my hand to strike the shocked look off of his face as I had done a million times in the past to those soldiers beneath me before I allowed myself to speak.

“Impertinent boy! You shall learn to watch where you are going or so help me...”

His only response was a scream so shattering it froze my arm in place. Yet when I realized what had made him so afraid, the horror was solely my own as he began to cry out in earnest.

“La Nesta Morte!  La Nesta Morte!”

Even a child of these times would recognize the markings of the damned. I shoved my deformed hands back inside the cloak just as two sentinels – no doubt receiving their daily bribes from the whores that lived in the adjoining back alleys – rushed forward before I could step away. They were too fast and the aching of my joints made my steps too slow. Within moments, I was being examined for the signs of the plague as the young boy stammered out his story to the other man. As the soldier took sight of my hands, he stepped away with an audible gasp; his own healed ones moving to cover his mouth and nose. I knew then that it was over.

For those suspected of having the plague in these dark times, there was no trial. No quick death sentenced by a judge who decreed your guilt whether evidence had been presented or not. By the time the first streaks of dawn had emerged to brighten the canals, I was bound and thrown upon the first boat found that would take me on my final voyage. My home and all my belongings were slated to be burned for fear of contamination. 

I knew where they were taking me. Any man, woman, or child would know it well enough to fear the name given to that island of the damned. Poveglia. My destination had become infamous between the years of our Lord 1630 and 1631 as the isle where all plague victims – man, woman, or child – would meet their demise. 

As we pushed away from the pier, I remembered well how thick the smoke had been as the poor inhabitants tried to burn the bodies of their patrons and how it would clog the nose with the smell of rotting meat. This was a memory I had long since tried to forget, but one that served well now to distract me from the Bird Man rowing me across the bay. He spoke now -- his words muffled against the weight of the white porcelain mask that covered his face with an elongated beak filled with the precious herbs used to ward away the evils of my illness.

“With God's help, you are the last.”

My eyes tried in vain to find his own beneath the beady circles that allowed him sight.  I thought that, perhaps, I could reason with him. Plead with him to jump into the waters and let me have the boat as my own so that I could leave Venice behind. Yet it was to no avail. The smoke now rising from the herbs burning in the small cauldron to his left blurred my vision of him, save for the white nose of the mask he wore. 

Though I could only assume now that the Bird Man, my own personal escort into Hell, was all too familiar with the path our small craft cut through the water. It was still a surprise at how quickly we arrived there. The peace of the scene felt wrong somehow. While the paintings that had lined the walls and books in seminary had been filled with depictions of Satan's domain, alas, there were no screaming spirits here. No beasts clamoring for my soul with jagged claws nor screeching of hellhounds, save for the sea gulls that circled lazily overhead.

I knew, had been taught, that the damned were not supposed to be able to speak with the saved. They were not allowed, under any circumstances, to acknowledge men filled with God's grace. But for all I knew, this man hidden beneath the mask would be the last person whom I would ever see. Thus, as I choked back a mouthful of smoke drifting in my direction, I found words easily enough to speak them.

“Have you taken many to this isle?”

I could not – nor would not – speak the name of a place so evil, where so many had been condemned to die based on the illness they contracted. The resounding snort echoed off the stillness of the ocean. And, as silence embraced me once more, I felt the sudden fear of isolation. Never again would I raise my sword against another. Never again would I hear the cries of the street merchants peddling their goods to those riding through the watery streets.

There would be no more nights filled with the teachings of the Trinity, nor hours spent in the company of my brothers in arms. It was the end of the world for me – my own personal Apocalypse – coming to pass without all the fanfare described in the texts I had studied.  I had been forever banished.

To the city I once loved, had professed my allegiance to, I was no more. My name would be stricken from any record for fear that I’d once again associate them with the Black Death. Yet this was Europe and word traveled fast among the routes merchants and men of war frequented.

News of my isolation would soon reach the ears of men who mattered -- and those who did not, for fear of a plague that would not be forgotten by the simple stroke of a quill.

It would live on, as man could not, to strike fear into untold generations, as it was striking fear within me now.         

I arrived on the sandy shores of Povelgia much too soon to suit me. The boat had stopped within fifty feet of its boundary and the Bird man was kind enough to slice away the bindings that had become caked with my flesh. 

“Take those with you when you go.” He gestured with his knife at the slices of leather that had fallen into my lap. All the innate instincts I had learned in battle failed me now, save one. As he ordered my departure, I rushed to obey. It wasn't until the salt began to seep into my wounds that I realized just what I had done. Instead of overtaking the man, or allowing him to thrust that dagger straight into my heart, I had done nothing -- aside from complying with his commands.

A black hatred for myself became overwhelming as I recognized my own stupidity. As I turned to rectify my mistake, I realized that he had already escaped. The Bird Man and his boat had already disappeared amongst the waves that were pushing me closer to the shore.

For the first time in my life, I was truly and utterly alone.

It was those same waves, so eager to expose the horrors of Poveglia to my eyes that carried me towards the isle. I was able to resist them for a moment, struggling against the tide until the winds increased the force of the waters at my back. I sunk down to my knees in my fight against the sea, relishing in the fiery pain of my hands that announced I was still, in fact, alive. 

The glint of the sun blinded me as it struck against my new captor, that offending ocean, and I began to stand as something heavy and smooth brushed against my thigh. Alas, I was able to brush it away until the waves showed the object for what it truly was. A large bone, much like the ones exposed by the steel of a sword as it separated a man from his knee. 

This was a day of reminiscence it seemed. For just as this was the first time I could remember being alone. It was also the first time I could ever recall screaming.  That scream, along with the hateful waves, carried me to shore and into the arms of Hell.

I woke from my nightmares to find the light of the day was giving way to night and a chill clamoring in my bones so thick that my teeth clicked together when I moved. The thin grains of sand clung to my damaged skin, my nose, and even my mouth as my body sat up and got my first good look at the island.

Before me, there was nothing but sea. A thick and evil mass that churned beneath the winds that declared a storm was approaching. There were trees here and even small huts set back against the forest border where the damned had tried to live out their last days in relative peace. The most curious and startling thing was the sand itself. It was a peculiar shade of gray, matted with objects too hard to be shells that dulled the landscape around me. I struggled to my feet, rushing forward to the water once more, as the truth of it resonated within my thoughts.

The fires of bodies burning. The futile attempt by the living to purify the island.  The offending material that had clung to me wasn't sand cast upon the shore during the millennia since God's creation of the earth.

It was ash. Human ash.

It wasn't until I was convinced that all of it had been washed away from my form that I turned back to face Povelgia. The entire shoreline that I could see was covered in the cremated remains of the dead. For a moment, I considered trying my hand at swimming through the waters to get back to Venice. Yet my fear of Purgatory was too strong.  To do so would be the same as committing my suicide and I had offended the Virgin enough already.

Something within the dark waters brushed by my leg and, for a moment, the horrifying image of a single human bone slipped within my mind. However, when I looked down, I realized that it wasn't a bone. It was the knife that the Bird Man had used to sever my bindings with on the boat. No matter how prized that possession had been, how great a tool, and he had thrown it overboard for fear that it would pass to him – and his loved ones – the plague. There was no harm, no contamination that it could do to me now, so I snagged the handle with care. It was balanced, a good size, and would serve me well in the coming days.

My last ones here on Earth.

Despite my isolation, I found my days filled with a sense of peace I had not known in Venice. As the chills and fever came, I would stretch out onto the sands covered with the ashes of those who had suffered just as I did. It was a mad thing to do. I knew this, but when I crawled back to the hut claimed as my own, the loneliness would once again take over. Down upon the shore, with the waters at my feet and the sun on my skin, I felt content that their spirits were with me; still suffering, still haunting this place, just as I was.

The bruising so prevalent to my illness continued to spread until I grew weak from its pressure upon my bones, and I knew that my final moments were approaching. It was night, the full rich moon casting shadows around me as I took hold of the knife and grasped it between my teeth. Walking was a battle much harsher than any I had lived through before, but I made it to the tree line. For that, I praised God and all His Glory, still hoping that my prayers would lead me to Heaven. Yet my heart knew better. My mind knew the truth. There was no Heavenly procession slated for me here. No mansion of gold gracing my family's name. Just Povelgia. Satan's retreat from the worries of Hell.

I felt my hands shake as the blade of the knife sunk into the thin bark of the tree now supporting my weight. The process was a slow one, worsened by the trembling from the fever threatening to make me delusional. Yet I was successful in my workings. My message was carved for all generations to see, to read, if they were ever cast upon this hateful place.

When I was finished, the spirits that had kept me company on the beaches surrounded my weakened body, whispering in the winds their approval.

Antonio Begleria. Fifth Son of the Begleria line. Died of the Black Plague. 1633. This isle is Sanctuary for the Damned. Be fearful, all you who read these words, for they will be the last you shall ever see.

With those words written, the knife fell for a final time from my hand as I sank down into the grasses that lined the coast. The voices of those who had passed before me grew louder in the winds, caressing my ears with promises of eternal peace and contentment despite all that had occurred.

Now I cast this message in a makeshift wooden box and hope it will receive my message across the infinite ocean. I am grateful it has found you...

And thus, with their promises, I let them sweep me away into my death.  

*

Cynthia Witherspoon shows beauty and brains in her debut here at SNM. Her publication experience includes The Concept as well as Chorus of the Dead in Whortleberry Press’ short story collection entitled: It Was a Dark and Stormy Halloween. She was most recently published in Whortleberry Press. Upcoming stories slated for publication in 2010 anthologies now include A Wish on the Devil (Strange Mysteries Vol. 2), My Own Making (An Honest Lie, Blessed Memories Tied to the Line (Halloween Dances with the Dead) Warning (365 Days of Flash!) For Your Loss (Flash! Anthology) Always With Me (Pellucid Lunacy), and Whispered Prayers (Pandora's Imagination: Summertime Magic). She has won numerous awards for several publications and also goes under the pen name Cynthia Gael. She hails from South Carolina. She makes quite a riveting debut here at SNM.

 

Ye Sands of Time

Trevor Donaldson

Rob had emerged from the shower, the chill of the central air conditioning making his hair stand on end and his scrotum retreat in a pre-pubescent manner. He sighed and studied himself in the foggy mirror. A wild, distorted blur of humanity ignored his most dutiful gaze.

He toweled a small circle in the mist and had a brief moment of facial recognition before the fog crept over his glasses once more. The fluffy blue bath towel scoured away at his flesh in a sawing motion as he dried himself. He flinched then stopped abruptly as the towel grazed the cuts on his back where Carla had scratched him last night.

Ah! He grimaced again and went over it more softly. He cringed and worked the towel gently, praying that the lords of the razor would deal a mere mild graze to his back this time. There, all done, phew. He put the towel the door hook and scuttled about the bathroom to pull his underwear on. His thighs throbbed from the workout he had given them last night and he grinned devilishly at the memory of Carla’s perfect ass staring him in the face as he plunged into her over and over. She never cried out or emanated an ‘Oh God!’ or ‘Yes Yes!’ Those pleas for more pleasure never issued from her lips.

She'd grunted though, yes, in that feral way women sometimes do when they’re pleased. It’s the same sound they make right before they doze off of course. But Carla had never resisted the second or third time. She must have been sleeping through it; maybe I’ll just withhold mention of those last two times so she doesn’t get pissed.

Rob peeked around the bathroom door, comb in hand while he settled his eyes on Carla’s supine body. Her petite frame moved rhythmically to her breathing, albeit slightly faster than normal. She must be having a bad dream, I won’t wake her just yet. When he’d woken up this morning, he had simply turned over and kissed the nape of her neck. Her hair spread spider-like over the pillow and had curled in on herself in a quarter-fetal position. She had stopped breathing, causing her body to freeze momentarily when he had touched her, but seconds later she had resumed that same rhythm. Rob let his eyes roam down her spine inch by inch until her tailbone entered his view. The small crevice beneath it was swallowed by the sheet which was draped nonchalanty over it.

Hair combed, Rob hurled his night clothes into the hamper and left the bathroom heading towards the dining room. He gently closed the door but stopped half way when he saw her shudder. Carla’s face was half-buried in the pillow while her sandy blond hair covered the remainder of her face. Red lips were slit in a slight part to allow air passage as she breathed, yet the hair in front of her mouth didn’t move they way it should have. The shuddering stopped and she lay still on the bed. With the door slightly ajar, Rob moved into the dining area and flipped on his computer, waiting for the dull, lifeless black screen to flash with a picture.

The kitchen table lay askew with articles and journals from her latest escapade overseas. The morning sun sliced through the vertical blinds to create a wedge of white over several of the periodicals. “Discovering Archeology” featured her photo on the cover, behind the lead archeologist of course. The team of 6 stood in front of a small temple pyramid in Egypt, similar in looks to the Giza pyramids, but caved in along the back side. Golden steps led up behind the crew into a darkened alcove. The subtitle read “Is That All For Kings Valley V?”

It appeared that the lead archeologist was a man; what was his name again? Weeks I think. Weeks had originally discovered the Kings Valley 5 (or KV-5 for short) cluster of tombs left by some Egyptian Dynasty. More often than not, a discovery was the result of some poor local whose donkey fell into a hole while they walked over the sand. It seems that sand was a natural preserving agent and perfect for mummification. While Carla hadn’t received any royalties from it, she was able to put that in her reference book for future employers, grants, and use it for her Ph.D.

Rob remembered when Carla had returned after her long three month field excursion to Egypt. She had gone out there hoping to meet Zahi Hawass and get herself an internship over at the Cairo Museum, but that had all changed after the event.

“Egyptology Team Vanishes for Days in KV-5,” was the title of another article clipped from a secondary science journal.

Thump, thump, thump. Rob stopped and turned towards the bedroom door. Maybe she’s up? But he wasn’t so sure of that, the sounds had been lighter as if her slippers had fallen to the floor. Rob set the article back on the table and crept towards the door; not a floorboard creaked he was so careful. The floor was clear of debris. Aside from the darkness coating the underside of their bed, all appeared to be in order.

Carla’s form shuddered again -- and this time her arm jerked. The jerk happened so quickly that Rob couldn’t quite figure out what bothered him about it. Was it the swiftness with which the arm had moved, or was it just the way it moved like a purely chemical reaction? Carla appeared okay. It even looked like she had brushed some of the hair away from her mouth where those rosy lips lay open in a yawn. She must have woken up and gone back to sleep, poor thing, guess I wore her out last night. He smiled and retreated to the dining room.

The sun roved over the table and had begun to retreat towards the window as it neared zenith. Rob shuffled over to their kitchenette and retrieved coffee from the fridge. Subtle earthy scents of coffee bean wafted up from the tin as he removed the lid and spooned out the dark earthly grains. Soon the room smelled of hot coffee and he leaned back on the counter; his arms crossed. He recalled the article now since he had been angry with the media for being belated with their report of Carla’s plight.

A team of 6 archeologists went missing late Thursday night. A report was not filed until well after they had been told to check in. A team of local authorities searched the nearby area 3 miles out where they had been digging, but no sign of them could be found. When asked why it had been impossible to find them, one of the officers quoted: The sand can cover your tracks in mere moments, which is enough for a man to lose himself in the desert.” - “

The team had been found 6 days later, dehydrated and nearly crawling on their hands and knees. It seems they had fallen into one of those infamous “holes” that the best discoveries are made of. Each person was treated for severe dehydration but not exposure. Each complained of fatigue and nausea; when questioned, neither of them could relate their experience inside the tomb.

The only detail the archeologists provided was that they had been digging when the lights had suddenly gone out and a small dust devil somehow had gotten into the chamber. It began blowing sand about the room. The rest was a mystery, even to them, because the next recollection they had was of waking up inside that very same chamber and crawling towards the light. They had been unconscious for six days but they had suffered very little trauma.

The room suddenly grew very quiet; was that a sigh which Rob had heard? The sigh, if that’s what it was, had come from the bedroom. A dry raspy noise like wax paper being crumpled.

 He walked back into the room and pulled back the blinds to let the midday sun in. He had to catch himself on the window sill. Carla’s body had shifted, but not in any natural manner. Her upper torso was contorted and facing up, while her bottom half set perpendicular to the mattress. Her jaw hung at a crooked angle the way an invalid will stand and salivate. However, no drop of moisture was apparent on her lips, just a chalky paste like tiny grains of sand. Her eyes were sunken in and her flesh had turned into a gray pallor that a person might expect from mummified remains.

He slid open the bedroom window and covered his nose as if expecting an unholy odor, yet oddly enough the air was dry.  Carla lay in the same spot they had coupled in last night and this knowledge brought bile to Rob’s tongue. A thin trickle of sand ran from her mouth and onto the sheets, only the sand wasn’t sand, but small pearly globes like egg sacs. A sudden breeze rustled the curtains and caused the bed sheets to lift up and off of Carla, sending them sprawling to the floor. A small cloud of pearly globes puffed into the air and he could taste them as they entered his mouth and nose to filter down into the depths of his organs.

What Rob saw next made him pale and weak in the knees. Mottled skin like moldy meat pulsed and wriggled near her chest and back where her lungs should have been. The skin pulled inwards and broke leaving a darkened core where whole flesh once lay. Six blackened-silver legs tested the air above the holes, their segmented bits almost perfect in their onyxian splendor. Almost as one, the silvered insects paused and turned towards Rob, as if noticing him for the first time. Their tiny freakish antennae twitched like a pair of ballerinas. The insects retreated into her body, that loathsome sack of a spawning ground. And when they had left, Rob could see her chest rise and fall, ever so slowly as if she were breathing.

When ambulance and police came to take her away, the medics had already covered her corpse with the black bag. Rob watched from his doorway, barely entertaining the detective’s questions as he, too, attempted to make sense of what had happened to Carla. However, the detective had said something which Rob had allowed the greater of his attentions.

It seemed that Carla’s co-workers had recently all passed away.

“The other 5 members of her team were found late last night, all curled up in their beds at home. It seems they had all passed away several hours earlier but their significant others hadn’t noticed. The autopsies performed all concluded the same result and stated: Infestation.”

“Infestation?” Rob bit at a hangnail and pulled it too hard wincing as he tasted pinkish flesh.

“Yes, but I’m not at liberty to discuss this further. You will have to check with the Coroner’s office in the morning or perhaps online media for Associated Press releases.” The Detective left without further adieu, leaving a stale whiff of cigarettes in his wake.

He stood numbly; his vision was a fog of war with tiny pinpricks of light central to his view. Fragmented fears clutched and expanded inside him while visions of minuscule eggs puckering within his lungs treated him to asthmatic sensations.

Rob stood stock still within his doorway, the lone finger caught between his teeth as he gnawed at that hangnail.

The paperboy rode past on his gold and red BMX, and pitched the evening paper at Rob who missed it. Picking up the paper, Rob pulled the rubber band over the curled paper and unfurled it. The headlines read “New Scarab Species Infests Cairo!”

It seemed that the new species of insect had been discovered near the Kings Valley area and was spreading fast. He scanned the article until his eyes lit on the line.

“the eggs get into a man’s lungs and within 2 weeks they hatch. The following 24 hours leads to excruciating death as they eat the person from the inside out.”

Rob held back a bit of bile which reached the back of his throat, and he forced it back down. He ran back in the house and looked beneath his sink where they kept the insecticides. With only two weeks left to live, what did he have to lose?

Rob’s body was found a few weeks later after a terrible stench was reported by neighbors.

After opening the door, the old landlord sneezed and coughed several times as he walked into a sandy cloud which hung suspended in the air.

*

Trevor Donaldson makes another return at SNM following his SOTM back in the February issue. He is a Book Dealer from Wisconsin, specializing in Sci-Fi, Horror and Fantasy. He holds a Bachelors Degree in Business Management.When he is not running his book store in Green Bay, Wisconsin, he travels to libraries and estate sales buying antique books for his business as well as his personal collection. He is currently finishing his novella entitled Derelict. If you have a book to sell or promote, Check out his website, leave comments and visit his bookstore:

www.donaldsonbooks.net

 Trevor Donaldson

Rusty Cage

Kevin McClintock

* SNM Featured Story of the Month*

I slowly wake from a deep slumber. Even inside my cage, with my back kissing the stony rock floor, I still manage to sleep like the dead. I finger a half-dozen stale animal crackers from a cardboard box. Chewing them one by one by one, I utilize a patch of rust on one of the iron bars to purge a nasty itch between my sun-beaten shoulder blades.

The first cracker is a giraffe. The second a raccoon. The third a squirrel. A fourth an elephant. And the fifth and last one? A dog — I think. You can’t really tell with these things — they’re way too lumpy and all of them have mushy legs that tend to break over time. I used to eat them religiously as a weight-watching snack, way back before right went wrong and good went bad; before the dead walked and stalked the Earth. Now these nearly tasteless cookies are the only food remaining from the two-ton cargo crate the United Nations airdropped into my paddock four months ago.

I seriously doubt there will be a second batch anytime soon.

*

The nasty things — that’s what I call the bastards trying to kill me.

By the thousands, these things roam the paved pathways snaking past my sunken cage. Sometimes they move north to the enclosed “World of Reptiles,” or race around the bend over to the polar bear sanctuary, or stalk south toward the enclosed “World of Darkness.” Yet they are always here to greet me when the sun peeks over the edge of the world.

Moments after I wake with my brain suddenly “on” and active following sleep, the moans and growls begin to collect and swirl above me — ebbing and flowing like schizophrenic locust swarms. And all along the vine-clad and glass-roofed pergolas I hear their pounding against the reinforced glass wall, sluggish limbs and hands and feet — even teeth and tongue. I wake to this noise each morning as precise as Swiss clockwork.

There are men of all shapes and sizes. Women and children too — lots of children. They stare at me with those dead and black-scribbled eyes. Frantically, they claw at the glass; gunk from their decaying bodies smearing the glass and distorting my view from within. Bits of teeth and fingertips snap off and pepper the ground like discarded cigarette butts. Some attempt to climb the wall.

Now, others hope to dig beneath the cement. Nearly all make running leaps, usually at full ramming speed. The wall won’t give, of course. It’s much too solid for that. Still, the undead try — bastard nasty things.

*

The paddock, surrounded by its glass walls, is now my home. Not too long ago, it had been the Big Bear exhibit and home to three very popular, very giant Grizzly bears — Archie, a male, and two females, Betty and Veronica.

   The night it all went down, a few of the animals managed to escape both cages and the clutches of the dead things. Dozens more were torn apart by the latter. I should know — I was there. The screams of the trapped animals had filled the flame-stained night until my ears had nearly bled. New York City on all sides of the zoo had burned to the ground. But a good majority of the animals — the giant elephant, the gentle panda, the noble tiger — had wasted away inside fenced-in exhibits from dehydration, thirst and neglect.

So had my three little bears.

No doubt they’d hung in there for weeks, bellowing hungrily for the keepers who were no longer there to care for them. Cruel fate would not be denied. They were long dead when I made their home my own. There isn’t much left of them now except scattered bones, the gnawed remains of a Christmas tree, and a tan ball which had been Archie’s favorite toy.

All in all, a truly horrific way to go — I’m glad they no longer suffer.

*

Scratching my matted hair that hasn’t seen a scoop of shampoo in more than three months, I crawl down to a large pool of tepid water. When I first came here, the heated rocks had severely burned the soles of my bare feet. But like everything about me — physically and psychologically — they’d hardened over time. Now, the calluses lining my feet were like thick wool socks, impervious to the mid-afternoon heat and the jagged rocks.

I wade in the large pool. There, knee-deep in the muck, I begin to splash the foul-smelling liquid across my naked body. First I cup and fling water into my face and over both shoulders, the latter of which still bears the brunt of the sun’s constant hammering. Next, I saturate my breasts and flat tummy — it’s amazing what starvation can do to one’s figure. I then run dripping fingers over each buttock, and down between the legs. I finish things off with a quick scrub of each tanned leg.

This “standing shower” is something I do each morning. I’d long turned indifferent to the look, feel and smell of the water. Too bad none of the eyes watching me from above care for such things — like moist thighs or dripping, tanned breasts. I always put on one hell of a peep show.

*

There were two pools of water inside the walls of my home. The first is the foul smelling bathing pool. The second is my one and only drinking source — located to the right of the polished and grooved rocky outcrop laced with beautiful, erratic glacial ice.

Deciding which was which hadn’t been up to me. Rather, it had been determined simply out of necessity. Big grumpy Archie — starving, feeble, with ribs showing — had curled up and died on the edge of his favorite watering hole; rump and hind legs submerged, the rest of the body sprawled drunkenly across the stony slab. As the huge body decayed to bleached bone, the process had putrefied the water beyond any sort of use, save bathing.

Because of this, I try to keep the drinking pool as neat and clean as possible, checking it every hour, removing any scattered debris from its surface.

Now, at the top of this outcrop mound of rock sits my “attic,” as I like to call it — a smoothly polished slab of stone. It’s a place I go when I need a breath of fresh air. I often sunbathe up there. Sleep there, too — particularly when the cave below grows too cold or damp for me.

Sometimes I scan the skies for exhaust trails from flying United Nations aircraft. But mostly I use its advantageous height to keep an eye on the nasty things collecting around the outside of my exhibit’s walls like a mob of peeping toms.

With various lumps of concrete, stone, boulders, wall recesses, scrub brush and leafless trees saturating or perhaps downright dominating the landscape, the paddock had proven quite the luxurious digs for three full-sized bears. Was it sufficient for humans?

No — it sadly lacked the comforts of home. There is one perk, I’ll admit; something that most triple-story Victorians with white picket fences and multi-car garages lack — zombie-proof walls. There is no way any of those shambling monsters outside could claw their way inside. Not unless I want them to, that is. And I’m not there yet…

Yet…

*

A faint crack of thunder fills my ears. Even from here, on the very edge of all things, it’s a rumbling growl, low and rather menacing was heard far in the distance.

I jump up and down, whooping. My actions stir up the dead even more than usual. Many amongst the throng take their agitation out on the fence, using teeth and talons alike.

Above me a battalion of bruised clouds oozes toward the Bronx Zoo from the west. Among the wounded ranks are several dark towering, purple-colored Cumulonimbus clouds. Anvil-shaped and rearing roughly fifty thousand feet into the air, the line smears the skyline from horizon to horizon with a hazy black. It’ll probably rain by sundown which is a blessing beyond belief. First, it will provide me my first “clean” shower in two weeks. Second, a fresh supply of wet drench from the heavens should restore my water supply, replacing much of the water that has, over the long days, become rather tepid.

Plus — and I can’t believe I’m admitting this — I love to lay atop the attic rock, with the falling rain causing an almost sexual thrill. Twice I’ve masturbated in the open for everyone alive or dead to see, the rain tickling all the good and secret parts of my flesh.

*

The zombies watch my every move. I’ve grown accustomed to their stares. Still, I can’t help but sympathize with how the zoo animals felt day after day, ignoring the milling crowds peering down from the fencing.

Poor things.

I’ve been a zookeeper here at the Bronx Zoo for nearly seven years. At first, when the dead came to life, we thought the city was rioting. Possibly something brewing from the immigration laws passed earlier in the week by Congress.

We stayed inside the zoo that first night, watching New York City burn. Yet with each passing hour, the violence outside escalated — explosions and gunshots by the dozens; escaping airplanes and helicopters stirring the air above us. The animals sensed the trouble, too. We could hear their cries floating up to the full moon.

I hid behind locked gates with twenty others near the “World of Darkness” exhibit. We were there for a total of five days. One by one, folks began to bug out, concerned about loved ones living elsewhere in the city. None were ever seen again.

I finally flipped after the animal cries morphed into keening pain and terror. There had been a breach along the northern end of the zoo, I was told, and the walking dead were quickly spilling into the area by the thousands. I tried to escape by one exit, and was almost killed. I tried to make my way across the park to another exit, but was stopped there, too.

I would have been caught between two rampaging groups had I not climbed a tree, teetered on its edge over the bear paddock’s fence and jumped. And I made it, for whatever it’s worth.

Sometimes I wish I hadn’t…

*

I was thankfully snoring atop my top rock, and not inside the cave below, when I was almost killed.

Why was I sleeping up top, despite the cold wind? I don’t know. I guess I’ve been spooked down there lately, inside the cave. I hear things. When I sleep or close my eyes. Scratching sounds from deep within the walls is what it sounds like. Something’s burrowing in there — somewhere…

Turns out I was right.

A sound near my face startled me awake. I spied through the ground-hugging mist a small shadow — about the size of a  child’s shoe — moving stealthily toward me. I slapped madly at it instinctively with my hand, sending it over the edge of the sleeping rock.

The thing squeaked as I did this, and that’s when I knew it was a rat.

I scrabbled my way to the ground, ignoring the loose gravel and shifting sand. It was the first living thing I’d seen in weeks, other than a few scattered birds high up in the clouds. For that matter, it was the first source of meat that I’d seen in weeks. Instinctively, my mouth watered.

When I raced around to the east side of the rock, however, the rat was gone. I could still hear it, though, somewhere off inside the cave. No doubt rooting around for a place to hide.

Thinking I had the thing trapped, I made my way inside — kicking aside an old, smelly tarp and my nearly empty supply of animal crackers. There in the back, and with the aid of some moonlight glint, two crimson pinpricks of light flashed — and again.

“C’mon over here, buddy,” I hissed at those shining orbs, kneeling now, moving slowly forward, fingers reaching for my prize. I tried not to let my hunger bully my methodical actions.

And that’s when I screamed.

From both sides two more shoe-sized shadows scurried, each emitting siren-like shrieks. Gasping, I snatched back my hand just in time.

Falling atop my ass, I watched with bugged, horrified eyes as all three rats — two perched on both sides, the third directly in front of me — approached, snapping and hissing.

I grabbed a rock and flung it at them. It missed. I picked up another and, with a shriek, slammed it down atop them all, until the pointed edge tore the bodies into bits and pieces. Strangely, none of animals ever tried to flee. Even in my terror, I found this behavior rather odd.

I dashed from the cave, out into the moonlight, and deep into the bathing pool. I waited there, shivering, staring deeply into the cave, relying on peripheral vision to detect any darting movement.

I didn’t see any. And none of the three rats ever moved again.

Only when the sun had breached the eastern skyline did I find out why. The rats were dead, but not in that way. Not in the normal way. They’d been dead long before the attack inside the cave. Sloppy sores, still oozing pus, were rimmed by squirming maggots and, despite more than a week’s rot, the trio had still moved. Had still burrowed. Had still attacked.

So they had been dead. But living — living but dead like the humans bumping against the perimeter wall.

Animals.

Undead animals.

Jesus God Almighty…

*

That night, a mundane mutt of a dog had found its way inside my compound overnight.

Its whimpering first woke me up. Atop my rocky perch, with breath hitching, I reached for the pile of throwing rocks I’d collected next to my sleeping blanket. I’d learned my lesson after the dead rats’ attack.

Following a long and careful stare below, I determined without a shadow of a doubt that the dog wasn’t a living corpse like the rats had been -- or the numerous humans stalking the barrier outside. The dog was like me — living, but scared completely out of its wits.

The dog finally took notice of me when I rose to my feet. It yelped, and running back behind the bathing pool, each falling paw creating wavy cascades across the water’s murky surface. Back against the wall on the other side, it warily eyed me.

“Hey boy,” I called to it, scrambling down to the paddock’s floor. “Here boy.”

The dog was a mix. Looked to have a greyhound’s body, but the face and head of a lab. Big brown eyes, sad too. And a dark pelt with a patch of white stamped to its chest.

“I just want—”

The dog was barking at me, growling, its hackles pimpled and ropes of spit spraying the ground.

Behind the dog, one of the undead attacked the glass wall, hoping to reach it. I’d grown accustomed to such movements. But the dog apparently had not. The sudden movement from behind absolutely spooked the dog. It bolted back across the pool.

I made a lunge for it, hoping to snag it by its neck. But the animal was too quick, slowed as I was by starvation. With a yelp, the dog shifted fluidly around me then scrabbled through loose grit into the shadowed interior of a rocky overhang near the eastern fence. There it shivered, rump against the wall, terrified.

I approached, cooing to it. Only when I was within a dozen feet or so did I realize I had gripped one of my throwing rocks. Why? Why did I have this rock in my hand? It was simple. I was hungry — God awful ravenous, in fact. I’d be dead within a week unless I swallowed something more nutritious than stale crackers.

The dog made a move to my right, but I blocked its way. It backed away, a whine deep in its throat, a baffled look crossing its face.

“It’s okay…” I lied to the animal, keeping my voice steady and soothing, as if speaking to a child. And I guess that made some sense. The dog, after all, was really nothing more than an overgrown puppy.

I watched the dog as she — yeah, I could see “he” was actually a “she” — gave me another long, throaty whine. It sounded almost imploring, as if she were questioning my intentions. Maybe she hoped I’d be good, perhaps like a previous owner, and nothing like the things lining the wall outside.

Finally, the dog took a tentative step forward. Again, those large brown eyes were wide and pleading. But she shied away at the last second as the shadow of my fingers traced delicate patterns across her snout.

“It’s okay,” I whispered again. Ceasing movement, I crouched on my haunches. My other hand retightened its grip on the rock. I would grab her neck with my extended hand — just long enough to bring down the pointed end of the rock between her eyes. If the blow didn’t kill her, it would certainly stun her. I could then pummel her to death, much like I’d done with the rats inside the cave.

“C’mon girl — you can smell me. Here girl — take a sniff? Yeah, that’s a good girl. Nothing wrong with that, is there?”

The dog mewled, taking another half step forward. My fingers were less than an inch from its moist nose now, which was working overtime inhaling my sweaty scent.

"You can trust me,” I whispered. I tried to sound like I meant it.

And it worked! She took another step forward, bumped up against my fingers, shied away from contact, froze for a second or two, inched her nose forward from the bottom-up — nose quivering — and nuzzled the knuckles of my right hand with her nose. She looked into my eyes and held my gaze for a few spare moments. It was the first time she’d done this.

I lunged, grabbing at the scruff of her neck — the parts momma bitches used to pick up their pups. I moved in, smothering her, bunching her up against the wall, so she couldn’t escape. Pushing her down with one knee, I raised the rock — pointing the sharp end at the spot between those two brown eyes. I would make it as painless as possible.

Then the dog did something I didn’t expect her to do. She went down in a boneless heap in a complete show of submission. Her large tail tucked up beneath her rump and she peed on herself. There was real suffering in her brown eyes; fear and confusion, but mostly just fear.

I had the rock poised above her. Just one quick slam of my arm, a pained yelp, and there would be fresh meat for several weeks, maybe even longer.

In the end, I couldn’t do it.

I flipped aside the rock and flopped down next to the cowering mutt, crying stiffly into my hands. With the pressure off, the dog bounded away from me, tail still tucked. I didn’t try to stop her. I was too sickened and ashamed for what I’d almost done.

*

One of the undead nearly made it inside the paddock last night. How the thing had managed to climb the tree and fall in, I’ll probably never know. But it did. As it came down, the cadaver’s weight snapped the thin sapling with a gunshot-like crack.

It was that crack which attracted my attention to the falling corpse, or a part of it, that is.

In my weakened state, it took me a few minutes to crawl from the top of the cave to inspect the remains of what looked to be an obese man in his 40s. Scraps of a business suit still clung to his shoulders, hips and legs. One piece — the upper half had fallen back on the zombie side of the fence with the rest of the milling monsters. Or I assumed it did, I didn’t really see it. That’s because I was too busy eyeballing the other half — the bottom half — splattered between the two water pools. One of the thing’s legs had been sheared off.

I picked the limb up with a scowl and chucked it back over the fence. I grabbed the other leg and prepared to do the same.

But here I paused.

Moments later, I dragged the leg and attached abdomen back to the sleeping cave’s entrance. Inside, I rummaged through my dwindling supplies until I came up with a box of matches. I gathered up some dry leaves and twigs, scooped it into a sizable heap, and struck two matches. Soon, the fire was roaring and huge. The flames forced the corpses to stagger and stumble in blind confusion.

I inspected the leg. Its owner had only recently been dead, thank God — there were only a few traces of rot and spoil marbling the sinew. So with a sharpened stick, I gouged out the decayed spots, leaving bloodless red patches dotting the limb’s length. As I worked, a few toes dipped into the flames. The smell of singed flesh flooded my mouth with sickly salvia, and it was all I could do from chewing on the raw flesh right then and there.

The aroma of cooking flesh brought the dog padding over, hunger overriding instinctive caution. She crouched just out of reach; tail thumping, tongue lolling, eyes never straying from the roasting leg.

I again used the stick to slice off a thin strip of meat. I held it up to my eyes, shaking off a few clods of sandy dirt. I sniffed it. I touched the tip of my tongue against it. In the end, I threw it over to the dog. The lab stared at the roasted flesh for a second or two before wolfing it down in a single, splashy gulp.

The dog looked up and gave me a throaty woof.

I couldn’t help it — I grinned down at her.

“You approve of the taste, I take it?”

A second bark.

I stuck the leg back into the flames, purposely concentrating the heat on the thick thigh meat and bone. But hunger soon overrode everything else and I took it out of the fire, peeled off a sizable hunk of meat, and chewed. It was mostly raw still. It was chewy. It was extremely gamey, with just a hint of rot. It was also the best tasting meat I’d ever sampled.

A piece for me and a piece for the dog, a second piece for me and a second piece for the dog, and so on and so forth, until what had once been a human thigh resembled the remains of a Thanksgiving Day turkey all ripped up from within. And us? Hell, we were stuffed, with stomachs slightly distended — like a pride of Serengeti desert cats.

We both slept very well that night.

*

I woke. It was still night outside, still dark and deadly silent. So why was I awake? My mouth was filled with a sticky sleep and the aftertaste from the roasted foot thick on my tongue. That was the worst part about eating the undead — the aftertaste.

I didn’t want to open my eyes. It’s how I’d been feeling lately with a full stomach and untold more energy. My body was trying to catch up on all the lost sleep. Now none of my limbs wanted to move.

I was hearing a strange noise again. It sounded almost stealthy — out near the cave entrance, or maybe just inside my cave. Still, I didn’t want to lift my head. Didn’t want to open my grimy eyes.

Besides, I had a pretty good idea what it was — Velvet. That’s the name I’d given the dog, because of her coal-black fur. She curled up with me most times during the night for warmth or companionship or maybe a bit of both. I certainly didn’t mind. We’d both come a long way since I’d tried to brain her for food.

Another sound.

Closer now.

Was that Velvet?

“Over here, girl,” I whispered, lazily rolling over; my eyes still closed. “Come curl up with me. I’m freezing.”

The sounds drew near.

There was a grunting sound, or something.

I opened my eyes.

Two reddish eyes flashed in my face.

I screamed.

A decayed hand snaked out to clutch my arm and again, I screamed. It was the zombie, or the other part of the zombie that had fallen inside the paddock — the part with the head and arms and hands and most of the torso.

Whimpering, I kicked at the thing’s head and face. It leered at me; its mouth twisted grotesquely. Parts of the face were missing or completely melted off. One of its eyes was missing. The mouth was a set of piano keys, ivory stained with black rot. Its tongue mimicked a bloated worm, probing for warm, soft flesh.

I kicked at the face, hoping to decapitate it, but such monsters were impervious to pain. Despite my frantic motions, one of its hands wrapped around my throat — beginning to squeeze.

That’s when Velvet had struck the thing from behind. With its powerful jaws, it grabbed the monster by the nape of its neck and bodily pulled it away from me. The hand around my neck loosened and scraped clean. I immediately scrambled to my bedroll to grab my throwing rock. I jumped atop the hissing, spitting zombie and smashed the rock down atop its head — again and again and again — until its head was little more than liquid mush.

I lay there, gasping. Beside me, Velvet was rubbing its nose in the red muck. All I could think about was food. We had enough food to last us at least another month.

Outside, the monsters howled. Luckily, it’s all the bastards could do.

I picked up my throwing rock, inspecting it. It had killed three undead rats and parts of an undead human. It had also almost killed Velvet, but I didn’t want to think about things like that. The bloodstained rock would be used for an entirely different purpose now.

Facing the cave’s wall, I kissed its tip against the wet rocky wall, carving out a sloppy sphere.

I stepped back to inspect my work. It was bad — I’d never been much of an artist. Still, I was committed, so I poked and peeled and prodded the tip here and there until I had marks strung out across one wall.

“It’s you,” I said to Velvet, gesturing at the four-legged stick figure of a dog. “See?”

Velvet just grinned and thumped her tail.

Turning back to the wall, I drew a human. That one was me. A bit skinny perhaps, but I’d resemble a stick figure for real soon enough.

I then drew walls and some of the zombies and other things like airplanes and zoo cages and buildings set aflame. But my eyes kept coming back to the zombies.

I guess I could maybe make a run for it. Climb the tree out of the paddock carrying Velvet on my back, somehow avoiding the undead beyond the fence perimeter. I could cut across the zoo’s African plains then scale the bearded fuzz of barbed wire spanning the top of the outside fence.

But then what? Where would I then go?

Grab a car and get the hell out of dodge. Go to the surrounding countryside where I could lose my pursuers in the muddy pastures north of the city. From there, maybe head to the kinds of places where the dead couldn’t follow? Like mountains or islands just off the coast or—

But then what? Where would I go? Into more caves to hide — caves like this one?

Maybe I would. Maybe I’ll just end up doing in some distant cave what I was doing in this one — etching pictures on the walls with a rock and cheap lipstick to teach future generations about life outside the cave walls…

This is the Sun God. This is the Sky God. This is a tree. A rock. This is an undead bastard overcoming its human victim.

Grimacing, I shook my head. I would likely die here, despite Velvet's company and a never-ceasing supply of roasted, rotted meat shifting outside the paddock walls. In time my drawings — nothing more than mere engraved lines and circles in stone — will become my life’s story.

Just like the cavemen of long ago...

*