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Dead Trees 2

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Cocking my head, I was able to see the beastie pounce, its body perfectly positioned to mount mine and slam me to the ground. I fluidly rolled, tucking the pickaxe into my body and avoiding the unsharpened point. The undergrounder hit the forest floor where I’d just been crouching. In a flash, I was on my knees, my weapon raised above my head. The beastie also rolled, but towards me, not away. Like the proverbial window of opportunity, I knew it was my time to strike. The beastie realized it too, a screech escaping its mouth as it saw my weapon raised high. The monster took an instant too long to move out of my way. Hesitation will kill you. With both hands gripping the handle, I brought the pickaxe down. The weight of the weapon’s head combined with gravity increased the velocity of the fall, amplifying the force. When the pickaxe made contact with the very centre of its chest, a bone-busting crack shot like gun fire through our surroundings. The undergrounder’s rib cage was split apart, the cavity opening like a clamshell to reveal internal organs. The heart was still beating wildly, pumping blood to an injured body. I reveled in the sight. My right hand, of its own volition, moved from the pickaxe handle toward that moving, thumping heart. It was warm in my hands, fluttering. I squeezed. I squeezed. The sack formed of myocardium muscle burst in my hands, spraying my face with warmth, getting into my hanging-open mouth. And when I contemplated eating its brain, I knew myself in the darkest places, the mental rooms in my mind that housed nightmares and ghouls. Half-beastie. Fully-realized. I was frozen in horror, my human-self flooding into my mind and tossing out the beast. No intelligence could bear under the weight of such psychological turmoil. The curtain of beasties had fallen, the path was open. More undergrounders would come, attracted to the smell of blood, ready to eat, ready to consume the banquet of flesh memory we’d provided.

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As my eyes adjusted, the details became clearer. The form seemed to be a human child, well past the normal gestation period. It was roughly the size of an 18 month old toddler, maybe a tad smaller… or bigger. It was hard to tell through the distortion of water and curved tank walls. There was a feeding tube connected to the lower abdominal area that stretched to the side of the tank where an external device pumped nutrients. The hair was under grown for the age and floated away from the scalp- about two inches in length. Something in the appearance of the child wasn’t quite normal. The face was a tad too elongated and the fingers a bit too bony. The reality of what was before me hit me like a freight train. I staggered back in horror and fell over my own feet. My ass hit the ground hard and my tailbone ached from the impact. The jolt gave me a reminder of my not-so-healed ribs and bruised side. “No… no way. No way did they do… what I think they did.” I got up from the ground and stumbled to the monitor. The lines of code and command had stopped. In its stead was an analysis report on subject: Sheila-2. I moved the cursor around the screen. When it hit the subject name, an underline appeared. I clicked and the screen shifted. Now I could see a conception date, vitals history, and a link to a genetic profile. That link confirmed my fears. The human genome had been crossed with undergrounder and not by splicing or cloning. It was achieved through basic fertilization of Sheila-1 eggs with Anonymous-XY sperm. I had a feeling I knew who that XY might be. One of two candidates… Like a bad accident on the highway, I couldn’t stop looking at the data. Sheila-2 was growing at a fast rate, but not nearly as fast as a pure beastie. Obviously, the human factor had tempered that growth. The vitals were stable. The heart beat a little faster than the average human heart, but not so much that Sheila-2 could be identified as nonhuman during a normal physical. I was pouring over the makeup of the synthetic amniotic fluids (which had been modified to accommodate new needs), when I heard a door open in the distance and lights spring to life in Lab-3. I quickly flipped the screen back to the analysis report and ran. Then I realized that this lab only had one exit- and that exit involved strolling right through Lab-3. “Shit.” I exhaled the word softly and scanned the room desperately. Another door in the back. Thank goodness. This door had no window. Inside was dark and small… a closet. I worked my body between obstructions on the left and right and ended up contorted and restricted, but able to pull the door closed behind me. I heard voices in the laboratory. Funny. Outside these walls, I hid from undergrounders, but inside these walls, I hid from very different monsters. I wished I could make out the words, but the voices were just a continuous string of mumbles punctuated by sporadic pausing. I was stuck in the damn closet for well over an hour. I waited quite a while after the talking died down. Better to be cautious.   It took forever to wiggle out of the closet. I knocked something over as I extracted my body from the cramped space. Whatever it was hit the ground with a resounding crash. Opening the door lightened the shadowed closet a bit. I could see the outline of shelving. When I was officially un-stuck, I found the light switch and flipped it upward. I stared at the shelves. They were lined with gigantic mason jars, each containing a malformed fetus. At my feet lay the broken remains of one of those jars. I was standing on a tiny arm… a tiny arm with tiny fingers. If I was hoping to leave no trace of my presence behind, I failed. Not only did I leave glass, fluid, and flesh; I left a pleasant smelling and steaming pile of vomit. Funny how much I vomited nowadays.

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Jack Wallen's 
THE LAST CASKET COVER REVEAL

And To Whet Your Appetite, Below Is An Excerpt From The Upcoming Book

Last Casket Excerpt

                ACT 1                 one | a hell of a show Everything has changed





Standing here alone again

It's time for my revenge

You put me in this casket

But this won't stop me

You need to burn in hell

No need to run away

I will find you anyway


                       ...Bride of the Monster

Wham! The crunch of the heavy Ibanez ARZ-Series guitar against the back of the zombie's skull sent a screeching feedback through the Blackstar Club 50s amplifier speaker. The sound momentarily stopped the undead bar fight.

“Kitty,” Todd Flash shouted. “Run.”

Kitty Casket was at the lip of the stage, surrounded by zombies, mic in hand and ready to crush any skull to get within striking range.

“Come on, baby,” Kitty squealed, “it's open mic night.”

With a quick windup, Kitty drove the back side of the mic through an eyeball of the nearest undead groupie. The pop of the optical membrane sent chills down her arm and bile up her throat.

“Oh hell,” Kitty protested. “I think I'm going to barf!”

Kitty withdrew the blackish-brown goo covered mic and the zombie dropped with a hollow, wet thud.

“Incoming.”

The shout came from behind.

“Kitty, duck.”

The raging voice belonged to Mike Machine. Kitty knew better than to not comply. The second she dropped to a crouch, a golden cymbal flew over her head and embedded itself into the neck of a monster. The beast didn't drop.

“Fuck,” Tom screamed as he continued forward.

“Tom, don't,” Kitty pled.

Tom was never one to listen. He jumped and landed the sole of his creeper into the symbol to finish the job.

The head and the symbol crashed to the floor.

“Come on, ya ugly bastard.” Billy the Bat was still cranking out power chords as he shouted threats to the undead audience. With each chord the zombies stuttered – almost as if the sound was painful.

“Billy, the zombies say you suck,” teased Kitty.

“Oh yeah,” Billy replied. “They can suck on this.”

Instead of battling back the approaching undead duo, Billy began playing a rockabilly take on Ozzy Osbourne's Crazy Train.

The zombies weren't impressed and marched onward.

It was Tom Mooner to the rescue. He hefted his Fender Squire above his head and dropped it down to cave in the skull of one of the zombies.

“That's how it goes,” laughed Tom.

One moaner remained. The entire band gathered together, encircling the monster.

“Here zombie, zombie, zombie. Kitty wanna play. Rowr.” Kitty teased the zombie. When it turned to face her, Billy the Bat ran a switchblade into the base of its skull. As the zombie dropped, lifeless again, to its knees, the band booed and hissed.

“What? I killed it.” Billy protested.

“Yah, but we were feeling kinda playful. Ya know, give the fucker a show and then, blamo, cave in its frontal lobes.”

“Hey, they're all dead. We did it.” Kitty was glowing with pride. “That was a hell of a show.”

Billy the Bat cleaned off his knife as he spoke. “Our best yet...if you take into consideration our entire audience was comprised of the undead. Actually, this kind of sucked. We need real, living people to play for.”

“And to pay us.”

Tom's interjection sucked the wind out of the band.

“This damned apocalypse,” Kitty started, “it's impossible to find gigs. Before, our only competition was the likes of Nekromantix and Horror Pops. Now we're facing down the living dead and empty venues. I thought the apocalypse would bring a sort of perfect storm for us. I mean, come on, this is our schtick. We own this theme, right?”

The band nodded their heads in unison.

“So why in the hell can't we find gigs?”

Billy raised his hand.

Kitty hissed. “Oh for God's sake, Billy, this isn't a classroom. Put your hand down.”

“Did you ever stop to think no one wants live music now because of the noise? I mean, it is noise that attracts the undead, right?” Billy challenged the group.

Kitty stepped in close to the guitarist. “What are you saying, Mr. Bat?”

Billy's eyes darted to the left and the right, his lip quivered slightly, and his forehead broke out into a sweat. “I'm saying...I don't really know what I'm saying, actually.”

Mike Machine stepped in to save the day. “He's saying we need to find some isolated club where our ear-splitting decibels won't attract the attention of the less-than living.”

“You mean the Mengelites?” Tom Flash interrupted.

 The band booed.

“Oh come on, it's a catchy name.” Tom defended himself. “Seriously, it makes sense. The Mengele Virus is what did them in...hence Mengelites.”

“It's offensive,” Kitty spat. “It's almost as if you're glorifying one of the sickest Germans to ever exist.”

The idea that the virus which brought about the apocalypse was an extension of Josef Mengele's work didn't rest easy on the hearts of Germans. Most survivors on the planet were quick to forget that point. To many of German descent, it was a painful reminder of yet another very dark time of their people

“Come on,” Tom chimed in. “Let's pack up so we can try to locate this Nirvana that Mike mentioned.”

After a round of groans, the band began the slow process of packing up their gear and loading it into the Kitty Mobile. The van was a take on the Scooby Doo Van, only with a predominantly feline theme. Splashed on the side of the van was the band's logo and Kitty's coiffed and lipstick'd visage. The van had already been attacked by numerous zombies as well as a few groups of living humans who simply had enough of walking. Unfortunately, there was little extra room once the gear and the band were on board.

Before leaving the club, Kitty made one last walk-through in search of food and booze. As she stood in the exit, she turned back and purrred before hitting the lights and strutting out to the van.

Meow, sexy kitty, meow.

Eli Constant: DEAD TREES 2 Reveal

Eli Constant
Horror, Science Fiction & Fantasy Author
***COVER REVEAL***
Dead Trees 2

Two years of peace in a primitive setting can make anyone forget a past full of science, beasties, and blood. But when that past comes flooding back- with razor-sharp talons and speed- to pillage the present, who will survive?