Mark Tufo Chat

Also Check Out The Interview I did with Mark Tufo & Mike Talbot
From Last Years Horror Month. Just click on the little link and have a read :-)

Mark Tufo & Mike Talbot Interview 2013

Finally...

When hell claws its way up from the dark depths of the earth, and the dead begin to walk again, for several people the zombie apocalypse doesn’t just mean the end of the world as they know it, it is also the beginning of a brave new life for them. For some it offers freedom, for others a deeper torment and unforgiving life than they ever thought possible. The Bimbo, The Book Nerd, The Hero, & The Friends, everyone has their place. What really decides their fate in this new existence, nature, or nurture? Who they become when the world goes to hell is the true decider on their own humanity, and will ultimately decide their fates. Forever changed, they have to learn to adapt to this dangerous and dark new world before they become one of the living dead themselves. Odium Origins is an accompaniment to the full length novel Odium II The Dead Saga. It contains several short stories featuring some of the characters that you loved to hate.

Author Bio

Finally...well, almost finally, don't forget to hop on over to the Coffin Hop and check out some other cool blogs and giveaways.

The Jack Wallen Interview

Among You Excerpt 

The second the car crossed into Tyler's End, the world – my world – changed. What I thought was going to be a visit to a first-class haunted house, turned out to be a journey into a magical world that would fold my definition of life inside out.

“Scott...” Sally whispered, “look at them...everywhere.”

“The costumes, the makeup...”

I couldn't find the words to describe what my eyes beheld. Walking about on the streets were horrific characters, all taken from the same page of the same book. As if time had no point or place in Tyler's End, every person was dressed in a variation of the same theme – Victorian England. Waist coats, bustles, stockings, ruffles...every piece a precise turn of fashion with a twist of the macabre.

It wasn't actually the clothing that brought about my bug-eyed awe. The makeup was astonishing. Every character's skin was a shade of grayish-green and looked cracked and aged by too much sun. Some had what looked like over-sized boils, threatening to pop, on their cheeks and lips. Some, mostly the males, had horns budding from the tops of their foreheads.

Sally pulled the car off into a cordoned-off field for parking. “They all look so, real.”

“And happy,” I added.

That was quite possibly the strangest thing of all – each and every one of the characters glowed with a joy that seemed to emanate from within. They talked, laughed...sang.

“This is...Sally, I don't know what to say.”

We got out of the car and spun on our heels to take it all in. There was so much. Even beyond the idea that the haunt of haunts awaited me, I couldn't get over the fact that the entire city seemed to be transformed into a horror-themed delight.

“It's Monsterville,” Sally said.

“What,” I asked.

Sally looked at me and smiled. “This place is like a town filled with monsters...Monsterville.”

“God ye good eve'n,” said one of the towns folk as he passed by. The tails of his coat swept up into the wind as if to wave 'hello'.

“What did he just say,” Sally asked.

“He said 'Good evening' in a Victorian England colloquialism. At least I think that's what that was. Or maybe he thought one of us sneezed. I don't really know for sure.”

“It doesn't matter, Scott; it's all so stinking charming.”

Sally reached out her hand to me. “Come on, let's go find the house.”

It wasn't hard. It seemed every member of the town criers assembly was headed in the same, general direction. That kind of deduction could be handled by a chimp.

“Scott,” Sally nearly squealed. She pointed ahead. “Look at it.”

It, the Gaultier House, was glorious beyond words. The building was a multi-story Victorian mansion that looked as if it had been plucked from some member of the English nobility and magically transported to the states. It was very out of place, but glorious in its oddity. Though it was certainly true to form in its architecture, there was a certain Tim Burton-esque element to the design. The manse stood three stories high with turrets on each corner that pointed and curled like elf or witch shoes. The whole of the design stood as a reminder that those who dwelled within were a nobility that no longer existed. The solid rock walls mocked anything modern builders could construct.

After spying the Gaultier House, I finally managed to see the town without my usual filters. Every element of the town seemed to work its way into the fabric of Halloween. The houses and buildings all seemed, on the surface, to be normal; but when you looked closer, you spotted fragments of strangeness littering the design. One three story house looked perfectly standard from one angle. The second you shifted your view, you spotted the slant and pitch of the walls – just enough to obscure normalcy.

There wasn't a straight line in sight. Every edge of every structure seemed to include some tick and trick in its shape and design.

I was in heaven.

Sally gave my shoulder a slap. “I think I see the ticket booth.”

She took off running. I couldn't help myself but to fall into perfect lock-step with Sally. I wasn't taking any chance in losing her here. It was Halloween night – a lot of crazy would happen within the next twelve hours. It always did.

We arrived at the ticket booth and dropped our cold, hard cash in front of the vendor who smiled and said, “Two tickets to the most unholy and frightening site you will ever witness. Please, make sure to pick up a brochure that explains everything you will need to know, before entering the double door entryway.”

Both Sally and I had our faces buried in the pamphlets, so we hardly noticed the two, be-costumed girls rush past us.

“Are we the only people here not dressed up,” asked Sally. “I feel so out of place.”

She was right. We were in an overwhelming minority. In the midst of the velvet and lace, we stood in denim and fake leather. I wasn't sure why every eyeball wasn't trained on us to ask if we failed to receive the memo about dressing the part.

“OMG,” proclaimed Sally. “There it is.”

My eyes followed her point and beheld what had to be the most wondrous spectacle I'd ever seen in my short lifetime. Seeing the house from even the slightest distance was one thing. Up close and personal brought everything into perspective. The house was tremendous in size and design. A perfect replica of a period long since forgotten. And yet...this wasn't a rebuild of a collapsed manse from days gone by – this was very real, very complete, and very...

“Amazing,” squealed Sally. “Scott, you must be peeing your pants. Scott? Earth to Scott.”

I hadn't heard her. I was too lost from taking in everything from every direction.

“I'm sorry, Sally. I just...”

“I know. Take your time; drink it all in.”

I felt like I was a little kid again, stepping foot on Disneyland soil for the first time. My world, always so small, had officially grown to magnificent proportions. Someone had reached their taloned fingers into my dreams and ripped the fantastical out, only to make it real in Tyler's End.

Discussion Time: The Old Slow Vs Fast Zombie Argument 

Finally...

Flash Fiction: The Black Honey Lost Files: Blackheart.

By Wulf F Godgluck

"The fuck is happening in the world?" Dale said, slamming the stack of beer on the bar’s countertop. "Bitch almost ran me over!" His face was flushed red, breath coming out in wheezing pants.

"Shit, you okay?" Randy’s deep voice rumbled under the bar. Dale could only see Randy’s freshly shaven scalp shining from the overhead light. The fucker didn’t even look up.

"Asshole!"

“Dale!” Randy stood. “I’m being a dick, sorry," he reached across the bar, grabbed Dale by the shirt and smashed his lips to his fiancé’s.

“You better be,” Dale grunted, a little out of breath. “You’re well on your way to being tied to a Saint Andrews cross tonight.” The fingers clasping Dale’s shirt tighter.

“Ya think, Pappa Bear?” Randy growled.

“And earning you a whipping with the bullwhip,” Dale growled right back.

The two studied each other for a long moment. Their dynamic of both being dominants always gave rise for this banter. Both knew they needed a submissive soon, or they’d be looking at becoming a switch couple.

“You better go get them beers before your barboys come in and wiggle their butts,” Randy said, the first to break eye contact.“I saw how you been checking out their asses.You got an eye on one of ‘em?”

“Yeah, looking right at the bastard.” Dale couldn't help but chuckle as the colossal Randy blushed. Somehow, over the past twenty-five-years, he still had it in him to make the ex army captain turn blood red in the face.

“Get!” Randy thundered, smiling as he ducked under the bar to take stock.

Randy had just heard the front door close when the scream came from the back. Jolting him and hitting his head against the counter. “Fuck!” he rubbed the spot feeling for blood. Another scream, this one different, and this time more than one. It wasn’t just a shout from the drunk beggar they allowed to sleep in the back alley of the bar. This scream had Randy clenching his jaw, and his spine turning to liquid ice.

Randy stepped out from behind the bar, moving to the back doors; he could hear the commotion of a struggle.

Slowly he pushed open the door, only accessible from inside. The first thing he saw was the spurt of blood flying through the air from a man’s mouth. The man’s head smacking right into the concrete brick wall with a loud crack.

Randy's eyes bulged in their sockets.

Black blood seeped from the man’s temple, eyes deranged and milky in appearance, his skin pale, and cloths ripped and torn. A gushing wound in his throat exposing the cricoids cartilage. Drunkenly the man stood, swaying and pulled back his lips displaying bloodied and black sludge covered teeth. A growl passed the man’s mouth causing more of the black slush to drip like thick sap from the neck wound.  

Randy turned running to the bar, leaving the back door to slam shut. He had barely reached the bar’s counter when another yell came. Panicked, adrenaline pumping, he didn’t give a fuck for military training right then. With shaky hands Randy grabbed the handgun strapped to the underside of the counter. His body trembled as he made his way outside, gun raised and ready.

He didn’t shoot, couldn't fucking move from the scene playing out before him. Three of them had Johnny-man on the ground, fingers clawing into his stomach. Another chewed on the man’s left shoulder. Through it all the beggar kept yelling, blood spilling from his mouth, “Help me, somebody, please help me!”

Randy just stood there. His mind numb as the fuckers feasted and tore Johnny-man in half.

The snarl in his right ear made him turn, mouth still open from disbelief. One of those things was inches from him. Randy just reacted, headbutting the suckly looking woman with half a face, pretty sure he pissed himself too.

His mind was in panic mode, still trying to rationalize that which shouldn't be fucking happening— human cannibals. The woman-thing had stumbled backwards, grunting and growling. Randy's head shot up seeing a pack of them--yeah, that’d be a whole motherfucking pack— running towards him.

He’d seen the shows, read some books but this shit was surreal. Zombies were not that fast. But these--

It was a lightning flash in his brain and thank the universe it came.

Dale.

The pack of things was already closing in, and the female one on her feet, when Randy stepped back into the bar and slammed the door shut. He had barely placed the bolt in place when the bang came against the door, rattling and causing him to jump back. His heart was a fucking fiend in his chest.

The front door opened, bring with it a chaotic symphony of the world outside, screams, car crashes, gun fires and God knew what else. All that ricocheted through Randy's mind was one of them had made it into the bar. He turned, the glare of sunlight blinding his view, the black shape swaying drunkenly towards him.

Randy pulled the trigger.

The shot ripped through Dale’s chest. He felt nothing, and then came instant pain. His legs gave out on him and he fell to the floor.

Hands were there to catch him.Warm hands, strong hands, familiar hands. Hands that could inflict pain and make love at the same time.

Dale shook as Randy held him, something wet dripping on his cheek. Darkness loomed around the corners of his eyes, his breath thin. Weakly he reached up, blindly placing a palm against a scruffy cheek, soaked with tears and mucus.

He had to say something, but what did he say to a man that had come to mean the world to him.

Dale smiled. Put every ounce of love in that fucking smile.

“I will always love you, Randy Blackheart.”

The world went black.

Finally...

Live Another Day

By Madeline Sheehan

Dropping down on all fours, careful not to settle heavily on any of the creaky floorboards, I crawled slowly across my living room. Like clockwork, several boards moaned in protest as my weight touched down up on them. My heart pounding, I quickly skittered right and then left, much like a crab, until I’d reached the row of windows. Swallowing hard, I gripped the windowsill and gradually pulled myself up until I could see the world outside my prison.

From my vantage point within the top floor of my five-story apartment building, I could easily view the row of shops and independent boutiques below, the afternoon summer sun illuminating the street and the several dozen people milling about.

From far enough away, it could almost be considered picturesque, just another beautiful summer day in Pearl River, New York…if the walls of the buildings weren’t blackened and charred, the doors and windows weren’t busted, and the merchandise that was once for sale wasn’t scattered, broken and shattered, across the sidewalk and street. And if the people were still actually people instead of the infection-carrying, cannibalistic, reanimated corpses they now were.

It was the same horrifying scene that had greeted me every day for two weeks now. Mrs. Havers, a once kind and elderly woman who’d owned the children’s clothing shop directly across the way, was out front as usual. Only today she wasn’t sweeping the sidewalk, wasn’t greeting her customers and passersby with kind words and a smile.

No, that Mrs. Havers was long gone. Today, like every other day for the past two weeks, the former Mrs. Havers was outside her shop, mindlessly shuffling the same ten-foot stretch over and over again. Her white hair, always carefully curled, now hung greasy and limp past her frail, bony shoulders. Her usually perfectly pressed blue summer shift was now wrinkled, caked with dirt and blood. Her vacant milky-white eyes, previously lit with the sort of warmth that only comes from living a well-lived life, were now focused on nothing in particular. Just like the others.

Worse, she was missing most of the skin on her left arm, the limp appendage hanging at an awkward angle. Her right foot was also broken, yet seemed to have little impact on her ability to continue walking. She walked and walked on an endless cycle, never sleeping, only ever pausing in her mindless movements when something would catch her attention.

As if reading from a cue card, when any one of the infected would break their mundane ritual, the entire mass of them would all stop what they were doing to turn in the same direction. Usually it was nothing. A noise off in the distance, a small animal making a commotion of some sort. They seemed to be drawn toward sound, but unless the noise continued on, or produced some sort of visual result, they became disinterested and went back to their habitual shuffling.

If only I had some fireworks. A remote-controlled airplane. Anything that could draw them away, and give me the time I needed to get out of this building and to my car. My once pristine SUV, now covered in gore and surrounded by the infected, sat only a half block down the street. Freedom was so close, yet reaching it was near impossible.

At first I’d been elated by the protection offered by these four solid brick walls. I’d been grateful that those four flights of stairs I’d once complained about daily were now the only thing separating me from the horrors that lay in wait beneath. But my sanctuary had quickly become my own personal prison.

I should have run. I should have gotten out of town when everyone else started packing up and running. I should have done a lot of things, except…

Dropping back down on my knees, I leaned my cheek against the cool wall and tried to breathe through the dizziness and nausea that threatened to overtake me. I had to keep it together. I had to keep going. Only how could I? I was quickly running out of both food and water, I felt filthy, and as far as bathrooms went, I didn’t have a working one. Forget starving to death, the rapidly declining sanitary conditions of my apartment would kill me before I could even think of opening my last can of vegetables.

Blinking away the tears that threatened, I looked blurrily across the room, seeking the small framed portrait seated proudly on the bookshelf. Taken on our high school graduation day, a friend of mine had captured the exact moment I’d come walking off the stage, my diploma in hand, and had run straight into Brian’s waiting arms. Only his profile was visible, his reddish-brown hair, a sliver of his pale, freckled skin, both a testament to his Irish heritage.

I was the dark to his light, my black hair, dark features, and bronzed skin a carbon copy of the Sicilian parents I’d lost to the whims of a drunk driver when I was only ten years old.

The picture was my favorite, depicting my husband as he really was: a tall and muscular, hardworking construction worker from Queens. And me, my smaller, much curvier frame almost entirely engulfed by him and his love. A love I’d clung to ever since I’d lost everything.

“I’ll always protect you, Becca,” he would promise.

And he had.

We’d both grown up as wards of the state, never having very much, and constantly on guard. Back then, living inside overcrowded group homes, I’d needed a protector, a champion, someone who would take care of me when no one else cared. Someone who would love me. And Brian had done just that.

During middle school he’d always kept the bullies at bay, and then later, in high school, he’d given out a fair share of black eyes to a number of guys who’d thought a child in the system would be an easy lay.

He was my first kiss, my first and only boyfriend, my one and only love.

After high school, neither of us were able to afford college. I was lucky to find a job at a local bank, and Brian, already working construction in Manhattan, joined the Marine Reserves. It was a selfless act, to ensure that we’d always have a roof over our heads, food on our table, and clothing on our backs.

The evening before his first deployment, while I cried in earnest, begging him not to leave me, he’d promised me he’d return. Seven months later, a month after he’d come home to me, we stood in front of God, the justice of the peace, and the state of New York, and he promised to love me unconditionally, to be my faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and to cherish me for as long as we both lived. That was six years ago. We’d been friends for fifteen years, lovers for ten, married for six, and still every bit as in love with each other as we were on the day we wed.

So, no, my husband wouldn’t have forgotten me. Brian McDowell was as honest, as trustworthy, and as loving as they came. He’d never reneged on a deal, never turned his back on a friend, and had never broken a promise. Which only meant one thing.

He was dead.

Back before the infection had struck, but with the knowledge that it was making its way toward us, people everywhere had been running scared, some stockpiling resources and refusing to leave their houses, while others began resorting to looting and eventually violence. It quickly escalated, becoming too dangerous for the average citizen to be out on the streets. Despite the still calm of our quiet suburban town, Brian felt it was no longer safe for me to go to work and as usual, he was right. Two days after I called in my resignation, the bank I’d worked at since graduation was robbed, and three people were killed during the incident.

The president, in an attempt to counteract the ensuing chaos, enacted nationwide martial law. Armed military forces invaded our cities, using brute force and weapons to try to bring the citizens to heel. Brian had been among those called to duty.

Day after day, night after night, I waited, locked inside our apartment while he patrolled the streets of New York City attempting to keep the peace. Nightly, he’d call me, sounding exhausted, growing increasingly angry with each day that passed. He’d never go into specifics but I could hear the fear in his words, sense his anxiety through the phone. This went on for weeks until one day the phone calls stopped.

Two days later, I lost electricity. The following day, I lost water. And it was that same night that the screaming began. They came from every direction, some near and some far. The gunshots that followed weren’t loud enough to drown out the sheer terror, sometimes agony, that each of those screams embodied. I ignored the shouts coming from within my own building, the banging on the doors, the pleas for help. I ignored it all, tears streaming down my face, my heart racing, I ignored it and just…waited.

Sometimes I would watch people running through the street, some managing to reach their cars while others weren’t as lucky. I watched, horror-struck yet unable to look away as the infected would mob them, rip into their skin with their fingers and teeth, eating them alive. Three days later, the last scream sounded. In its place was something far worse: the quiet death that every one of the infected carried within them.

A choking whimper bubbled up in my throat, but I quickly squelched it with the slap of my hand across my mouth. Holding my breath, I squeezed my eyes closed, causing my gathering tears to leak free. As they slid, one by one, down my overheated cheeks, a violent shiver shook my body and my teeth clattered together. It wasn’t uncommon for me to feel cold despite the stifling heat. Oftentimes I found myself shaking, unable to feel warm, the bone-chilling cold coming from a place so deep inside me no amount of layers could help it. It was fear, I supposed, unescapable, and freezing me in ways no lack of temperature ever could.

At night it was worse, the only source of light the moon, every noise that sounded—the unearthly groans from the infected outside, the unexplainable creaks, scrapes, and scratches of my apartment building, even the sound of my own shortened breaths—all leaving me in a state of hair-raising, heart-pounding panic, leaving me unable to sleep.

If the lack of food didn’t eventually kill me, the fear I felt undoubtedly would. Never before had I ever felt so helpless, so unable to fathom a way out of this dire situation.

I needed Brian. I needed his bravery, his strength, his ability to think clearly when others couldn’t. I needed my husband.

That was when I heard it, a booming, resounding crack that I knew to be a gun discharging. Forgoing any sort of stealth, I jumped up to my feet and yanked the curtains open. The scene was much the same as before, only now Mrs. Havers lay still on the sidewalk, the back of her skull blown to bits. The other infected had paused in their shuffling, wildly turning their heads back and forth, seeking out the threat.

I too was seeking the owner of that bullet when another crack echoed through the streets, and directly below me another infected fell to its death. Pressing my face against the glass, I tried to see farther down the street and still saw nothing.

Two more shots were fired, and two more infected fell. Then a maelstrom of bullets zipped through the street, each one hitting their intended target. I watched, my mouth agape, as the source of the shooting finally came into view.

A lifted pickup truck, complete with rooftop fog lights, bright red flames painted along the side, and tires half my height, was rolling to a stop near the end of my block. Men and women, some dressed in plain clothes while other wore military fatigues, all of them heavily armed, were crammed into the bed of the truck, picking off one by one the few remaining infected that were slowly ambling toward them. As the truck came to a stop, several people began climbing out of the truck. Kicking the dead infected out of their way, some continued picking off what was left of the infected while the others headed toward the shops.

My heart in my throat, I flattened my nose against the glass, squinting through the glaring sunlight, eagerly searching the faces of men wearing fatigues for Brian.

Another pickup truck, this one much smaller, pulled up beside the first. Before the truck could come to a complete stop, a male figure jumped out of the back. Tall and broad, dressed in fatigues and a football helmet, he took off down the center of the street. As he drew closer to my building, I noted his broad shoulders, the mechanical and familiar way he jogged, and my heart began pounding, beating faster and faster the closer he came.

Stopping directly in front of my building, he looked up, it seemed, right at me. My breaths became short and strained as the welling excitement in my stomach grew to an unbearable level. I was going to puke, or cry, or shatter into a thousand pieces, maybe all of the above. It had to be him, it had to be him, because if it wasn’t him…

“It has to be him,” I whispered fiercely, my hands clenching into fists. “Please, God, you have to be him.”

Reaching up to grab his helmet, he pulled it off his head, revealing a familiar shock of messy reddish-brown hair. Looking directly up at me, he smiled his achingly beautiful smile, and I stopped breathing altogether.

It was him, he was here.

And I knew then I would live to see another day.

© Copyright Madeline Sheehan

Finally...well, almost finally, don't forget to hop on over to the Coffin Hop and check out some other cool blogs and giveaways.

Megan’s Cage
(A companion short story to The Beautiful Dead)
By Daryl Banner

Megan's Cage

I saw a man’s left eye get poked out of his face by a dead lady with no jaw. I call that an eye exam.

My hands grip the cold bars of the cage I’ve been put in. This cage … in this nest of Crypters … this twisted lair full of throaty, groaning people-things who’ve stored me away like meat until they’re ready to feed … I’m only in this cage because I couldn’t run fast enough.

I call that getting second place.

Before I ended up here, clumsy feet had carried me through camp as pots and kettles threatened to trip me. I could hear the screams of girls too dumb to hide. I refused to scream. Little girls and boys scream but I don’t, not me, not Megan. I remember still racing between tents and cooking fires long after everyone else took cover. That’s what you do when the Crypters invade; you take cover.

“Megan, you gotta hide,” my mom had urged me.

“In the empty dinner kettle, quick! Go!” cried my dad. “Throw a blanket over you!”

But I was sick of hiding. So I ran.

These cages are too small to properly fit a person, even a child my size. Wind pulls my hair in every direction like a swarm of angry thoughts. I can’t keep it out of my face, and can’t keep the thoughts from turning my glare dark, darker. Thoughts like, I should’ve listened to mom. Like, I’m so sorry dad.

I still won’t scream.

In one of my last moments at the camp, when the Crypters seemed to have gotten all they came for, I’d turned around to find a Crypter with a missing arm and gooey eyes staring at me. Love at first sight.

Dashing behind a tent, I’d stolen a long wooden spoon from the dinner kettle that dad commanded me to hide in. I couldn’t stab a potato with this, so the most I could hope to do was give the Crypter a well-earned spanking. Or snap the utensil in half and drive the pointy end through the Crypter’s left looker.

You know, an eye exam.

I’m clinging to the bars of my new cage-home, feeling the mad winds of an angry planet grab at my hair, and I can’t get the screams of the girls back at camp out of my ears. I’m so sweaty under my arms, my palms … gripping the bars so tight I can taste the metal they’re made from.

At camp, I witnessed a girl my age being patiently consumed, inch by agonizing inch, from her tiny pink toes to about her waist before the fat dead man eating her lost interest and crawled off. The last thing she said was, “Aaghhrhhgrh …” which I took to be a thank you. I call that one a buffet.


Somewhere in my mad dash away from the pursuing Crypter—the one I’m sure that caught me—I stopped hearing the girls’ screams. I guess something found them. That’s what I call a losing game of hide-and-go-seek.

This one boy in his tent who didn’t stay up past his bedtime, a Crypter ate its way in and made at the boy’s face so fast, he couldn’t even say hello.

Early morning wakeup.

I remember the wrong step I took, how my foot caught at the uneven ground, throwing me face-first into the dirt. For that instant, I wasn’t thinking about becoming Crypter feed; in fact, my first thought was, mom and dad are gonna be so mad at me.

Hide, they said. I’m sick of hiding, I said.

And now: caged.

And now: death waiting patiently.

And my parents will have to go through all the grief again because apparently I didn’t think they felt enough the first time around. What I’m saying is, when my brother was taken off not long ago (and most likely made a new home for himself in the belly of some dead man) I had to call that “relocating”. You know, because if I call it what it really is—my brother, abducted, likely eaten alive, screaming like another kid at camp—then I’ll realize I’m doomed.

Here in this cage, doomed.


This is when I finally scream.

Yes mom, yes dad, like the girls I made fun of back at camp, especially the one who lost in a game of freeze-tag with a Crypter, I scream.

The wind is loud and I am louder.

I scream because I’m alive, because I can’t call this just another game, a hide-and-go-seek, a buffet. No more lies. No more blankets over dinner kettles. No more running or hoping. I scream because this is exactly what it seems and nothing else: the end of my life. The end of hope. I scream to drown out the wind and to join the bit of humanity left, the bit with sense enough to hide, the bit who are still alive.

And then a shoe lands in my cage. Someone’s shoe. I stare at it and forget to keep screaming.

I think about the shoe on my own foot, the one by which I tripped running away from the gooey-eyed Crypter. I think about how a shoe got me here.

I study the shoe curiously. Then, I look over.

There’s a beautiful lady with long winter-white hair watching me from the cage next to mine. Her eyes are glass. Her skin is too colorless. I know what she is in an instant, a shoe missing from her dead white foot.

“Are you one of them?” I ask.

“One of who?”


“Them.” She’s dead … but she’s not one of them. I don’t need her answer. I already know: she’s different. A misfit. Prisoner, like me. She has a Crypter mom and dad and she refused to hide too. She ran. This is what I call a sister I never had. This is what I call a chance.

This is what I call: I’m still alive.

Finally...

Inviting Oblivion
By
Eli Constant

His heart was beating slowly.

So slowly.

An inconsistent thump beneath his skin that weakened with every passing second.

I felt the ragged rise and fall of his chest, my body pressed firmly against his, savoring the last moments of his humanity. He promised me it wouldn’t end this way, whispered to me night-after-desperate-night that we’d be safe, unchanged, imperfectly mortal. I’d even started to believe him.

I’d pictured us sitting together, growing old, rocking on our front porch and gazing at our grandkids playing hopscotch on the sidewalk of our little slice of serene suburbia. Maybe we’d even buy my parents’ old house – the split level on Dove Street near the mountains. Maybe my childhood crib would house our first sleeping child, all cherub cheeks and strawberry-blonde curls. Like me, like my hair used to be, long and wavy and almost iridescent in the sunlight.

Now my hair was dull, ratty, lifeless. Lifeless.

Like he was about to be.

And there was nothing I could do. Nothing to do.

But wait.

And rest against his body as his breathing became more ragged.

“Laura?”

I lifted my head away from the soft brown hair covering his upper torso. “Yeah, baby. Can I get you something?”

“You…” the cough interrupted his speech, convulsing his entire body, “need to leave me now. I can… feel…” another cough, more violent. It was so hard for him to speak, “It’s happening.”

“We have a little more time.” I spoke softly, my right palm resting against his sweat-slick face. He tried to interrupt me, but I didn’t let him. “Hush. Rest. We have a little more time.”

Not that I knew that for sure, but it was something for him to hold on to, a little ray of light in the darkness that was death. He took a deep, shuddering breath and then sighed heavily, knowing that arguing wouldn’t convince me. “I love you, Laura.” His voice was almost inaudible. Before I could respond and tell him confidently that I loved him also, his body began to move erratically beneath mine. His eyes closed; his mouth pulled into a harsh line of pain. I tried to hold him still, but he was too big, too strong. And I was so petite. I rolled away from him, watching and worrying.

“It’s okay; it’s okay. You’re okay.” I said the words mechanically, uselessly. He’d been right though. It was happening. I should have left when I’d had the chance. Not that a few minutes head start would be enough distance to save me…

We’d been warned of what he’d want most when the change was over, when death had its way and he was reborn a dead, unfeeling thing with a singular desire. Flesh. Blood. Hunger.

His body was perfectly still now. My fingers roved across the floor until they found his left palm. I rubbed the marks there, the deep teeth marks that were now crusted with dried blood, gritty with the filth of our travels. As I touched the wound, I felt the coolness there, the loss of heat and life. Beneath my touch, his hand moved slightly, waking in the aftermath of death and transformation.

I scooted back quickly, self-preservation urging me away from the thing that once was my husband. Yet, my eyes would not leave his face, so ashen and corpse-like. His beautiful, walnut-brown hair – which had always retained its luster even without proper nutrition or showers (unlike my own sad locks) – was noticeably dull now. His defined facial bones became even more prominent, hollows forming beneath the apples of his cheeks.

I should have run, at least made an effort to save myself.

But save myself for what?

He was all I had; all I used to have.

Even this shell of him was better than nothing at all.

“Ethan?” The silence that followed was louder than anything I could have said.

Maybe his body had rejected the change. We’d been told that could happen. It would be a mercy of sorts.

But then I wouldn’t even have the shell of him.

“Ethan?”

I didn’t stand, but inched myself closer to his body in a half-crawl of hesitation.

I reached for his left hand, the bite mark as ugly as ever.

As soon as my fingers grazed his palm, his eyelashes fluttered like hummingbird wings. Then his eyelids snapped open, revealing the absence of the deep storm-gray I’d loved. Now his eyes were glazed over in an opaque, sickly mucous.

Was it wrong to see peace in those eyes? To see the end as an oblivion that I could meet happily?

His fingers were a vice grip around my wrist now, but I didn’t care.

“Ethan, I love you too.”

He looked at me. And I knew it wasn’t him, wasn’t Ethan- the boy that had taken me to prom in his uncle’s too-large suit with the ruffled collar, the law student that had taught me how to fish, the grown man who’d placed a tiny diamond on my finger and called it a ‘placeholder’ for what I deserved. He’d proposed after winning his first big case, everyone that mattered to us had been there, at the celebration dinner. The night had been perfect and special. I’d had the lobster bisque and gotten terribly sick, but I hadn’t cared. He’d been there, holding my hair and placing a damp washcloth on my neck.

No, I knew it wasn’t Ethan.

But tell that to my heart.

His other hand moved to my neck. Another unbreakable grip. “I love you, Ethan.” I squeaked, air fighting its way in and out of my body.

A flash of something in his face. Recognition maybe?

No, I knew it wasn’t Ethan.

But tell that to my heart.

As his mouth closed around my neck, I smiled. Even as his teeth savagely tore at my tender skin, I smiled. I floated into that inviting oblivion, glad to join him as an undead thing.

Finally...

The Rachel Higginson Interview

 Excerpt: Love and Decay, Season One, Episode One

Oh, god.

The smell was the worst. The absolute worst.

It wasn’t enough that I had to pick my way through dismembered and half-eaten bodies, or that at any moment one of them could spring up from the ground and make an afternoon snack out of me.

It wasn’t enough that I hadn’t had a shower in over a year and a half, hadn’t worn eye liner in even longer than that and my hair was somehow simultaneously disgustingly greasy while frizzing into a perpetual fluff ball.

Oh no, that would never be enough. My ugly tan work boots were a size and a half too small, I ripped my too big Grateful Dead t-shirt off a very, very dead man, and my jeans…. or what was left of my jeans was the last of my stash from my once excessive closet.

After all of that- and I mean, the shower alone should have been enough suffering for any living being to suffer through- it was the smell that got to me.

Putrid, rotting flesh from both the dead that littered the ground around me and the remnants of stench that lingered in the air when the Feeders were finished was what triggered my gag reflex and watered my eyes. There weren’t enough words in the English dictionary to describe my revulsion, or the way my empty stomach flipped with every breath.

I probably would have puked if I had eaten anything in the last two days.

The best thing about the Zombie Apocalypse? I was no longer addicted to sugar and caffeinated beverages.

I wiped my forearm across my sweaty forehead and re-aimed my handgun in the general area in front of me. This is the point of the story where I’m supposed to tell you what kind of gun I’m carrying, but let’s be real…. Before the end of the world I was a cheerleader at a small town school, where I was the debate team captain and student council secretary. I lived for throwing parties when my parents went out of town, making out with my football captain boyfriend and doing the occasional trip to the homeless shelter where I would put in my monthly two hours of good deeds.

I’d never even held a gun-- scratch that-- I’d never even been in the same room as a gun until the world went to shit. Who knew the cure for herpes would turn all those sexual deviants into people-eating, brain-dead, infection-giving assholes?

Not me.

The whole phenomenon gave a girl a serious complex about safe sex.

Not that I was having sex. Or would be any time soon.

I hadn’t even seen an eligible bachelor in a good six months and it wasn’t like I had exactly been interested when we passed each other with guns raised and a suspicious glint in our eyes. Although there was a sort of mutual give and take between us that could have been considered an instant connection, possibly love at first sight. I let him loot the dead gentleman that had his head literally severed from his body by Feeders, and he let me raid the vending machine offering one bag of Funions that had been smashed into pathetic crumbs.

But then we both went our separate ways and I will never know if he got eaten, turned or found the promised land of Zombie-free showers and espresso machines.

Plus, I was still pining over poor, deceased, Quarterback-Chris.

Just kidding! Quarterback-Chris had apparently been less than faithful to me during our two year relationship and after things with the government, army and general world went to hell, Quarterback-Chris tried to eat me!

So I did what any loving, devoted girlfriend that just found out she had been serially cheated on by her now zombie boyfriend would do. I plunged a butcher knife into his eye socket and when that didn’t effectively do the job, I drove over him with my mom’s Escalade until his head detached from his body.

God, I was glad I held onto my v-card.

          Could you imagine me as a zombie?

          Ugh, it made me shudder just thinking about it.

          A rustling to my left had my gun up, pointed and steady at whatever was stupid enough to make noise in a regular Feeder playground. I only had three bullets left, so this kill would have to be spot on.

          That was the thing about living in a world in which it was a very likely possibility that you could end up as someone else’s meal before lunchtime, you’ve got to be very good at shooting. Very quickly.

          So even though the most I knew about my gun was that it was a Beretta from the label on the handle, and the exact kind of bullets it took, .40 S&W- because those were an absolute necessity and I was always on the lookout- I knew exactly how to use it. I knew exactly how to get my bullet from my gun to the perfect dead zone right between the eyes.

          In fact, it was kind of freaky how good I was at killing things.

          Well, killing already dead things.

          It was like I was born for the Apocalypse. No, I couldn’t find a hot shower, figure out how to make food last longer than twenty-four hours and effectively loot a Walgreens that still had hair products available. But I could stay alive.

          I had an innate ability to stay alive.

          And in this day and age, ninety-two weeks after the first recovering STD victim bit his doctor and the world fell apart, staying alive was very important.

          Back to the rustling….

          I slowed my breathing, stopped moving completely and waited for the sound to come to me.

          One of the first things I learned about survival was that there was absolutely no need to go hunting down trouble. In the world I lived in, trouble would find you soon enough. It was better to cover your back, stay calm and have a loaded weapon ready and waiting.

          “Reagan, check this out!” Haley squealed in a loud whisper.

          “Holy hell, Hales!” I whisper-shouted back, “I almost shot you in the f-ing head!”

          She made a resigned grunting noise and I heard her mumble, “Too bad, I bet they have showers in heaven.”

          “We are so not convinced you’re going to heaven,” I whispered back while stepping over a particularly decayed body.

          Did I say the smell was the worst? I meant maggots.

          The maggots were definitely the worst.

Finally... don't forget to COFFIN HOP!!

Me And My Good Friend/Author Jack Wallen

The Armand Rosamilia Interview

Armand Rosamilia: Dying Days: Origins 2 Excerpt

Chapter One

 Cheryl jumped at the slamming of the front door, immediately sliding out of bed and gripping the Colt .45 on her end table. David wasn't in bed next to her and she tried not to panic. They'd been over this a hundred times, and it always ended in something stupid like David being too loud or a wandering animal setting off a perimeter alarm.

Someone was coming up the steps. Cheryl got into her shooting stance, dropping next to the bed to give as small a target as possible and ready to shoot.

"Cheryl, I'm walking," she heard David call.

She relaxed. I'm walking was their code for everything being alright. If he'd said I'm coming up she would have killed anyone coming into the room. It was as simple as that.

When he entered the room he wasn't smiling. He wore his Army fatigues and his own Colt .45 was in hand. "It's happening."

 David had the Ford F-150 SVT Raptor already loaded. He tossed their bug out bags in the front seat. "Is everything locked up?"

"Of course." Cheryl slid into the passenger seat. "Your parents are already on the move." She loaded the coordinates on the GPS and turned on the other devices mounted to the dashboard. "I'm tracking them now."

"Your parents?"

Cheryl looked distraught. "They aren't answering their SpecPhone."

David shook his head. "They probably never bothered to keep it charged and change the batteries." He started the Raptor. "Is their car moving?" David had installed a tracking device on their car last Thanksgiving even after they'd told the couple not to. Cheryl's parents didn't buy into the apocalypse prepping and thought David was kind of strange, but he treated their daughter well and that was all they cared about, according to Cheryl.

His Army training (he was an M.P.) had carried with him even after his tours had ended, and a stint as security police in the Air Force finished off his career but not his need to get ready for the end.

"It's really here?" Cheryl said through clenched teeth.

"Yes. I'd been monitoring the police bands this morning while watching SportsCenter. It all happened so quickly, like a tidal wave across Canada and the U.S."

"Canada?"

David glanced at her as he drove through quiet side streets. "We should be safe. I didn't hear anything about Thunder Bay." The couple had built an underground bunker over the border in Canada two years ago, and spent the last two summers prepping and training. They had enough room for them and their parents and enough food and supplies to last for a year. It was a six hour ride in normal conditions, but David knew it would take much longer if the problem had spread even more. "We need to tune into the police and military bands."

Cheryl went to work, trying to find information.

"You didn't even bother asking what was going on," David asked her as she tuned into the Hastings police radio band and heard nothing.

"Something bad," she said with a humorless laugh. "We've trained for this and what's the biggest thing? Not losing your head and keeping calm."

"Zombies."

"No shit?" Cheryl found another band, this one emanating from Canada. "Thank God we learned French."

David's SpecPhone rang and he used the BlueTooth to answer it. "Hey, dad. We're monitoring you and should hookup within the next ten minutes." David frowned. "Already?" He turned to Cheryl. "There are attacks in the area already. This is spreading pretty quickly. My parents aren't able to head north. The roads are already closing." They picked a secondary meeting spot, further west.

"I think we're in trouble, too. According to the Mountie band, all roads into Canada are being shut off. They're trying to contain it and keep it from jumping the border, but it might be too late." Cheryl shook her head.

David gripped the steering wheel and sighed. This is all happening too quickly. All of my projections were wrong. "I somehow thought I'd be ahead of this."

"How could you know?"

David shrugged. "I've been waiting for this my entire adult life. Hell, I thought about this as a kid. We're prepared and it took all of an hour to get mobile and get the truck loaded."

"It would've been quicker if you'd have woken me up earlier," Cheryl said with a hint of annoyance.

"You looked so peaceful," David said and smiled at her. She didn't return it.

"We've planned and planned this."

"I know. But we already had all the cases in the garage ready to go and it would've taken longer to come upstairs, wake you and then get back into the garage. From the time I heard the news until we left it was really forty-nine minutes." David slowed down at an intersection backed up with cars. He stopped and backed up, shooting down a side street. "I had the truck done in less than ten minutes."

"Together we did it in eight." Cheryl looked at the GPS system. "You're heading down a dead end."

"There's a park up ahead. I can cut through and get onto another road." David turned to her again. "Sorry."

Cheryl laughed. "Don't be sorry. Just get us out of the city and hook up with our parents." She took the SpecPhone from her husband and dialed her parents. "No answer," she said after a minute.

David pulled into the parking lot of the small park and jumped the curb. He cruised past the empty swing sets and slide. "I just wanted another excuse to go off-road."

Cheryl held up her cell phone. "No signal already."

The Ford Raptor bounced the curb and they were on a quiet side street. At the next intersection David steered onto the sidewalk and went around stopped traffic.

"The power is out." David didn't want to panic but he was close. By his worst estimate they should've been out of Hastings already. Instead they were still moving street to street. In every scenario they'd gone through getting a jump on traffic and getting out of town and north was the easy part. Now they were heading west, away from their ultimate destination, and into the unknown.

Cheryl looked frantic as she went back to the SpecPhone. "Their car hasn't moved. What does that mean?"

David knew what it probably meant. "Call my parents back and see where they are." He didn't want to waste any more time but knew leaving Minnesota without their four parents wasn't an option. "We'll swing over to your parents and grab them. It's actually almost on the way." It was about twenty miles out of the way but David bit his tongue.

Finally...

The Eric A. Shelman Interview

EXCERPT from Dead Hunger: The Flex Sheridan Chronicle

Together we moved through the front two rooms, one eye always on the front of the house.   We splashed the pungent gasoline on the remaining bodies, the walls, and the floor.  Plenty left.  Our plan might work.

They were only fifty yards away now.  Coming fast.  Well, fast for them.

And then we saw it.  The bodies of the dead were beginning to move.  Almost imperceptible at first.  A twitch of a finger.  Neck.  A foot.

“Shit!  Do you see this, Gem?”

Her face was aghast.  “I checked those three for a pulse, Flex.  All dead.  All of them.”

“And I checked the others.  The one on the far side of the room, almost in the hallway, started to get to his feet.  His face turned, and the skin was pallid, the lips drawn, the eyes white and unseeing.

The nostrils flared.

I walked fast toward it and fired one shot into its brain.  It fell in a heap.

I hurried back to the porch and with the blade, drew another long cut down my forearm.  I wanted to keep them coming at all costs.  That one hurt.   I ran back inside.

“They’re here, babe.  Put some coffee on,” I said. “Oh, did you get that pastry pack at Costco we talked about?”

“Very fucking funny, sweetheart.  Focus,” Gem said, the humor in her voice imperceptible.

We walked cautiously through the front rooms, cognizant of the twitching, awakening things on the floor, but believing we had the time advantage.  They’d already been soaked in gasoline, so should torch easily when we started the fire. 

We moved down the hallway.  I splashed the gas on the left wall, and Gem on the right.  We came to an open door and Gem involuntarily jumped back.

I whispered, “The other side rooms were empty.  This is the feeding room, apparently.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Gem. 

The man I’d seen earlier had died now.  I could tell because half his brain, accessed through the gaping hole in the back of his neck, was in the creature’s mouth that lay atop him.

Behind us the zombies had entered the house and were now crowding into the hallway.

“Let’s clear a path,” I said.

The Books Of Eric A. Shelman

Finally...