Roll up, roll up! It's Day five of this crazy haunted blog hop. By now you should have seen enough and read enough content to give you nightmares for weeks! At least, that's the idea anyway. Let me see if I can make those nightmares stick around for a little while longer...

​

 
​ The night came and went with little talking from either of us. Both of our needs had been
sated, our bellies had food in them and we had somewhere safe to sleep. And sleep, came
very easily.

I awoke to the sound of groans just outside, the moaning of zombies passing through no
doubt. I stood up from the bed I had slept in and stepped over Conrad’s sleeping body, and
moved towards the door. The shack was sturdy, no gaps between the planks in the door or
frame, and so I moved to the boarded up window, trying to find some small gap to look out of.
The zombies didn’t know that we were in here, they had been drawn by the scent of Sarah’s bloody and broken body. I had left her outside, though I wasn’t stupid, and I knew that killing
her, especially the way I had, would attract them. Because there was no way to clean up that
sort of kill unless you had polythene sheets and plenty of bleach.

Of which, I of course, had neither.

And so I planted her body a little way aways from the shack entrance. If they were going to
come, at least they would aim for the body and not for us.
And they did.
I found a small crack between the panels hastily nailed across the small window and
looked out. Three of them were already on their knees, bony fingers digging deep into her
stomach cavity and extracting her innards. I wiped a hand across my mouth, feeling saliva
pool at the corners.
The sight was beautiful.
​
All greens and red, nature mixing with death.

And then the zombies themselves; greying, unnatural corpses, moving and feeding, pulling life from her death. It was amazing.

My heart was pounding, my eyes fixed on the image in front of me with so much awe that
I didn’t hear Conrad stand up behind me and move towards me. His large hands reached out and slammed against my back, pushing me up against the wall of the shack and I grunted out my surprise as his body pressed against mine.
“You think you can kill me? That I need to fear you, Andy? You’re nothin’, you’re less than nothin’, and I don’t answer to you, or anyone,” he growled against my ear.

One of my arms was trapped between my body and the wall, and I felt cool steel against my
ribs and a sharp pinch as he toyed with me, pressing the tip of the knife against me before
pulling it out again.

“Do you have any last words?” he asked.
I hissed in pain as the knife went in a little deeper, my gaze still on the zombies just outside
of the shack. I shook my head no, and he let out a low laugh.

“Thought not,” he replied, his filthy breath hot against the back of my neck.

My body was tense, desperate to inflict pain upon him for even daring to threaten me. I gritted
my teeth, holding my breath as his body weight shifted, ready to take the final plunge into my
side with his shitty piece of steel. But as his body moved, I slammed my head back, feeling his nose connect with the back of my skull.
He yelled out, and I span, covering his mouth with my hand to stifle his cries. He’d dropped the knife, and so now neither of us were armed, and as the low growl of zombies began to increase
in volume, his eyes went wide.

Zombies. His biggest fear.

I grinned and threw my weight against him, sending him backwards. The noise of us falling
and crashing to the wooden shack floor was loud, way too loud, and the groans from outside increased. Conrad scrambled underneath me, his hands frantically trying to find the knife as
he tried to shift me off of him. He was bigger than me, and weighed more, but I was quicker.
My hand clenched around the handle of the knife and I stabbed repeatedly over and over into him.
His chest.
His side.
His stomach.
With every thrust of the blade, he fought me less until he was a puddle beneath me. I stood up
and backed away from him, his eyes still following me across the room as I grabbed Sarah’s backpack and threw it over my shoulders.

“Please,” he coughed up blood, a spray of it landing across his chin and chest. “Please, Andy.”

I grinned again and hocked up a mouthful of saliva and spat it on him. I checked the gap at the window, seeing my opportunity for escape slipping with every second.

“See you on the other side, Conrad.” I mock saluted him and threw open the door, making
sure to leave it hanging wide open as I made my escape into the forest and away from here.

​Copyright Claire C. Riley 2017
​
 Come back for part six tomorrow!

Welcome to day 2 of the blog hop!
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All Good Things 
Two

“All I’m sayin’ is, cheese would be on my list,” I shook my head and tutted at him but Conrad laughed and continued on, “just hear me out.”

I stopped walking, the train tracks beneath my boots long since used. His idiocy was beginning to grate on my nerves more than usual. “Nah, man, it doesn’t matter what you say; cheese is a
stupid fucking thing to take to a dessert island.”

“No, listen, it’s basically mould anyway, right? And I love cheese. I mean, you can eat it with anything!” he grinned like he was telling me something intelligent. “So basically, it would last
for—” he spread his arms wide, “for fucking ever, right.”

It wasn’t a question, merely a statement.
My fingers twitched around my gun as I stared into his face, equally disgusted by his choice
of items for our fictional dessert island and by his own stupidity. Every time I thought he had
reached the lowest level, he said something new and even more ridiculous. He was the worst partner in this crazy world as ever there could be, and his days were drastically coming to
an end.

“Listen, numbnuts, you can’t eat cheese if it’s mouldy, there are some you can—but not all.
You’ll get the shits eatin’ that stuff, not to mention whatever else that stuff would do to your insides. Besides, what happens when you’ve eaten all your cheese? You’d fuckin’ starve, man.” I turned and continued to walk away, stepping over the debris on the tracks.

We were heading to California, to the beach. It had been Conrad’s idea originally, me, I was a wonderer. Ain’t no home or no place for someone like me in this world, not anymore, and that was okay, that was how I liked it. But Conrad, he wanted roots. He wanted a home, and a sofa and a white picket fence. But most of all he wanted a good woman on his arm. Or at least a woman chained to his bed and ready to do his bidding whenever he damn well pleased. So we were heading to California where all the women looked like Barbie clones and strutted around in bikinis all day. At least, that’s how it had been before the apocalypse.
I was almost certain that those bitches would be the first ones to be killed when it all went down.
It didn’t matter to me, not really.

California.
Barbie.
The apocalypse.

It was all just inconsequential bullshit that filled my day up with its less than monotonous drivel.
In fairness, Conrad had been good company for a couple of weeks, but even that didn’t matter since I had every intention of slitting his throat either before we arrived at our destination, or
when we got there. I was still debating which would be the most horrific for him. To never reach
his dream, or to get within spitting distance before I killed him.

“Alright then, what would your three items be? Since you think you know just about everything.”
He fell into step beside me and I bristled at his close proximity. I did not like to be touched.

I kept my eyes on where I was walking, already knowing what items I would take with me.

“A Hatchet, a litre bottle of vodka and some rope.” I answered.

He snorted on a laugh. “You ain’t got no food. You’re gonna starve, you idiot.” He laughed again, harder this time, the sound filling me with more irritation than nails down a blackboard.

“A gots a hatchet to kill shit, vodka to sterilize the meat or any cuts I might get, and rope to make me a fine damn bed or make hunting traps.” I side-glanced at him.

Or to hang your body from a damn palm tree if I’m unfortunate to have you with me.

Conrad’s mouth downturned a he thought over my argument. Eventually he nodded, his lips pursing. “Alright, you make a valid argument. But my cheese would make whatever you caught and killed taste mighty fine,” he said without looking at me.

I was about to argue with him when the trees to our left rustled and the tell-tale groan of a zombie could be heard. Conrad’s face turned ashen and he glanced at me as we came to a stop.
He hated these things, hated this world like it was. He said this world wasn’t right for people like me and him, but I disagreed. I thought it was perfect for people like me and him. It was our own personal playground of destruction.

The zombie stumbled out of the treeline, its head tilted upwards as it sniffed the air for
anything it could eat. Its head snapped sideways, its cold dead eyes searching us out. Conrad
had probably attracted it right to us with his incessant talking and clumsy footsteps.
I drew out my machete, deciding on a quiet kill for once. I had no satisfaction in killing these things, and I avoided it at all costs, if I could. They were, after all, the evolution of man, and what place did I have to kill something like that? None, that’s what. I had no right and no damn place, but until I made my decision to become one of them—to join their undead ranks, I had to take them out
or be taken out.

My whole life I had been in control, and my death and rebirth would be just as controlled.
I stepped forwards, listening as Conrad let out a relieved breath that I was taking care of this for us—again. The urge to kill his stupid ass was getting harder to resist, and if it were a choice between him and the zombie in front of me, I would gladly choose him. Unfortunately, I needed him for a little longer.

The truth of the matter was, in this new world, you could almost never survive on your own.
I needed Conrad while I remained human.

The zombie had finally found us, and it was slowly making its way forwards, like a lion on the prowl, slowly hunting its prey across the land. It was a beautiful sight, all of its predatory senses heightened as it hungered for flesh, for blood and bone and skin, and death.
It was strong, beyond human strength. With no fear, and no limits.
It was amazing.

It stalked across the tracks towards us, its footing was unsteady because of all the debris
and it stumbled and fell to the tracks, slamming its face into the metal. The crunch of teeth and bone made me grin, especially when it looked up showing me the damage it had done to itself. Black gunk dripped from its mouth and its front teeth were shattered, but it wasn’t fazed, it
didn’t flinch or cry like a little damn baby, it just began to clamber to its feet again.
“Amazing, fuckin’ amazing.” I grinned, before stepping forwards and taking off its head in
one quick slice.

The head flew from its body as my blade separated head from shoulders, and it landed with a
hard crunch to my left, jaws still snapping, eyes still trying to find me. My grin stayed in place as I carried on walking down the tracks and Conrad jogged to catch up to me.
“You not finishing that off?” he asked.
“Hell no.”
“Oh,” he replied, scratching his head and looking confused, but knowing better than to question
me on anything I said or did.
We continued on in silence, just the steady hum of my blood thrumming through my veins
and the crunch of our boots. In the distance I heard the groan of another zombie coming from somewhere, but it seemed far enough away that it wouldn’t bother us if we kept on
walking in silence.
My stomach rumbled in hunger, and I thought about what we would be eating for our dinner
​this evening. It wouldn’t be what I was hankering for, that was for certain, and that made me incredibly sad.
But soon I would make the transition.
Soon I would belong.

​© Copyright Claire C. Riley 2017

See you tomorrow for part three of the story!

​Claire
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He was humming. Loudly. He had been humming for several miles now, the sound started
off quiet, and had gradually gotten louder and louder until it was almost an ear-splitting roar
in my head.
My teeth were grinding together, the crunch of tooth on tooth giving me a splitting headache.
I glanced sideways at him, wishing, not for the first time, that I could shoot lasers from my
eyes and scorch his damn face off. He was looking up to the sky, watching the trees above us swaying in the light breeze, a smile on his face. He must have noticed me staring because he looked down at me, the extra couple of inches that he had over me putting him at around
six foot, compared to my five foot seven.

“It’s not all that bad, not really,” he said, his humming finally ceasing.

I blinked and looked away.

“Come on, you don’t have to be a hard-ass all the time, Andy.” He slapped a hand on my
shoulder and my nostrils flared at him until he removed his meaty paw. “Sorry,” he murmured
and looked away. "I'm just saying that you don't always have to look at things like it's the end of the world."
​I narrowed my eyes at him. "But it IS the end of the world!" I hissed.

He glanced across and smiled. "Or is it just the start?"

​I looked away in disgust. He was a fucking idiot.
We continued on for another mile before the sun began to duck below the horizon and dusk
began to fall. We needed to set up camp for the day, find something to eat and drink, rest,
yada yada. It was a never ending cycle of survival. But I can't say I hated it. My whole life had been built around survival.
Only now the monsters were dead instead of alive.
 Besides, the monotonous constant cycle was something that I clung to. In school they had
said it was merely low level OCD. In college they said it was extreme OCD. By adulthood, everyone that knew me, knew that there was something majorly wrong with me. I loved that it
had taken them so long to draw that conclusion, it had given me time to perfect my skills. And by that point, there was no chance that anyone could stop the journey I had set out on.

“We need to stop for the day,” I said, pulling the map out of my backpack and unfolding it.

“Thank God, I’m beat,” he replied, wiping the sweat from his brow.

I examined the map, seeing that about a quarter of a mile off track there was an old
maintenance shack, and I pointed at it.
“You sure?” Conrad frowned, not looking convinced. I silenced his question with a glare and
folded the map up back up, and we set off.

*

The shack was in surprisingly good condition, considering. Most of these places tended to be almost wrecked beyond their usefulness, and more than once we had had to keep on moving
to find another place to stay for the night. Yet this place still had a door on its hinges and a
roof overhead. Not bad going by all accounts.
Unfortunately there was ten or so zombies surrounding it, which meant two things. One, that
there was at least one person inside, and two, we had to deal with these zombies before we
got to that prize. And this many zombies, meant I had to be traitorous to my kind once more
and kill me some zombies.

One by one they caught hold of our scent, slowly turning with low, guttural growls to face us.
My stomach pinched in anxiousness and self-hatred, knowing that what I was about to do
was not good. It went against every damned instinct in my body to kill these soldiers. But there was no other choice, not with this many.

“Get out your blade,” I growled at Conrad.

“You can’t handle this on your own?” he laughed nervously, trying to goad me into taking
care of this all my own. But I couldn’t, there was just no way I could kill this many in one go
and not go insane with regret.

“Get your blade out, and earn your keep, man.” I stepped forwards, mirroring the zombies
in front of us, and with an ache in my belly that had more to do with remorse than hunger, I
began hacking away at their rotting bodies.

At some point, Conrad joined in, though I wasn’t sure when exactly that happened. As their
black blood rained down on me, and their teeth snapped but never found purchase, I took
them down. I rammed my hatchet into the back of a child zombie’s skull, watching as the bone crumbled beneath the heavy metal, and she fell to her knees forever silent. I swallowed,
squeezing my eyes shut at the sight of her poor dead body, and wishing that I could take it
back. Begging a god that never listened to take back my terrible actions. This kid didn’t
deserve to die, she deserved to be the queen in this messed up world. She was weak,
yet equally strong, dead, yet more alive than me. And I was a goddamned murderer.

Conrad slapped a heavy hand on my back and cheered. “Yeah, we did it! Fuck you
zombies,” he laughed, kicking the head of the poor dead kid at my feet. My hand tightened
around the handle of the hatchet, knowing I couldn’t take another damn minute of his.
He. Had. To. Go.
I took a steadying breath, flexed my shoulders and turned to face him, before raising my
hatchet to shoulder level. His eyes widened as my intentions became clear, and he backed
up a step.

“Come on, Andy, we’ve been friends a long time,” he pleaded, his voice sounding whiny and pathetic, just like him.
I gritted my teeth, my mouth quirking up in a grin. “I don’t have any friends.”

“Hello? Is someone out there?” the soft female voice sang out from the shack, and Conrad’s
gaze drifted over my shoulder.
​
“Err, yeah, we saved you, you can come out now.” He looked back to me, his expression almost desperate. “Come on, one last hoo haa, for the road, huh? How about it?”

​
Copyright Claire C. Riley 2017

Look out for part four tomorrow!
​ 

www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/f4d6d07716/

Here's the link to the list of participating blogs! Make sure to go visit them all!
​

​
Welcome to the October Frights Blog Hop!

A cadre of horror and paranormal authors are offering chills and thrills from October 10th-15th.
We have stories, books, giveaways and more! Come along the dark path for all the scares!

1. http://afstewartb...Are You Afraid of the Dark?  
2. girlzombieauthors...GirlZombieAuthors   
3. Jim-Mcdonald.netJames P McDonald    
4. www.debbiechristi...CURIOSITIES - Debbie Christiana 
5. letaphawk.wordpre...Hawk's Happenings   
6. alicedesampaiokal...Alice de Sampaio Kalkuhl   
7. carmillavoiez.wix...Carmilla Voiez Horror Author    
8. stephanieayersaut...Stephanie Ayers   
9. mhablas.blogspot....McCallum J. Morgan  
10. blog.danitaminnis...Danita Minnis 
11. www.solitaryminds...Philip Harris  
12. www.authorcarolin...Caroline A. Gill  
13. frightenme.weebly...Naching T. Kassa  
14. ourwriteside.com OWS Ink  
15. katiemjohn.blogsp...Katie M. John 
16. www.authorsloanem...Sloane Murphy  
17. laviniaurban.blog...Lavinia Urban  

18. www.kellymartinbo...Kelly Martin  
19. depressioncookies...Tia Bach  
20. www.bloodredshado...Barbara Custer  
21. www.nickronomicon...Nicholas Paschall  
22. patricialynne.wee...Patricia Lynne  
23. mreneedramaqueen....M'Renee Allen  
24. ash-krafton.blogs...Ash Krafton  
25. www.clairecriley....Claire C. Riley  
26. kmcooper.ca/my-li...K. M. Cooper  
27. themusingwriter.b...Rebekkah  
28. www.slipperywords...JD Blackrose  
29. hiddenworldsbooks...Hidden Worlds Books  
30. www.meganorussell...Megan O'Russell  
31. greydogtales.comJohn Linwood Grant  
32. themacabreauthor....Anne Hogue-Boucher  
33. forromanceloverso...Hello Romance  
34. missscarlettflame...Scarlett Flame