Mid-Hudson Valley, New York.

— Bryce H. is a Licensed Practical Nurse, 35 years old. We met at his home in (name withheld), NY for this interview, in a typical post-war living room, free from clutter. At the time, just before the mass infection took hold and society as was known collapsed, he had worked at the county nursing home for under two years. The facility he’d worked for housed 240 residents and employed 180 staff members. This account is of his last day at the nursing home, which was the same day as the well-known, live-televised massacre at Ardsley, which claimed approximately 2700 military personnel and caused a mass evacuation to the north. (more…)

We ignored the stories at first. It didn’t have much to do with us, clear out here in the sticks. Small towns are that way. Unless it affected someone we knew, or our own family, it wasn’t really news. The hemorrhagic fever was bad. We wondered how it got here. How it got loose. Then military nuked Macomb . Ten days later, Champaign was turned into a glowing hole. That got everyone’s attention. Some of us lost family there. Government said they didn’t have a choice. It was a terrorist attack. We couldn’t believe there were actually zombies out roaming around. Until one showed up in town. (more…)

“Shhhh.” Wes whispered to John. “Get down. Do it slowly.”

“What!?” John whisper-asked.

“Shut up!” Wes whisper-answered, never taking his eyes off whatever had gotten his attention out beyond the camp, out past the marker five feet in front of him, out into the seemingly endless black of open ground. He cocked his head slightly to the right, trying for a better listen. (more…)

Ted worked the pump on the twelve-gauge, waited until his target was ten feet away, and squeezed the trigger.  His shoulder, toughened against the kick of the shotgun, jarred back briefly and another useless set of rotting arms and legs dropped to the ground.

“Careful, Ted, they’re starting to pile.” (more…)

It gets cold in January.  Cold and windy.  On this particular night, it wasn’t a steady wind like you usually got, but gusty.  Just when you thought it had backed off, it blasted you.  This led to more frigid air finding its way into coats, under hats, up nostrils.

And Mikey had another two hours on watch.  He hated being up in the middle of the night, and the cold was just the cherry on top of the whole crap sundae. (more…)

The winners of the first contest period of 2009

1st Place: Sweet Like Maple Sugar by Jeffrey DeRego

2nd Place: Black Cats and Hungry Ghosts by Natalie L. Sin

Thank you all for writing and reading the stories on our site. This contest period was the most heavily contested so far, and selecting winners has gotten more and more difficult.

Haven’t had cigarette in twelve hours now.

Offices all look the same. Sure, one company sets up cubicles and the other has rows of desks with those Cicso Voice Over IP telephones on them, but ultimately, they all radiate the same feeling. The office feeling, the one that tells you that you’re uncomfortably middle-class and in the long run going absolutely nowhere and you better shut up and be happy about it if you want to keep your job. (more…)

Please see Verse 1 of The Minister

The Minster: Verse 2

Against the gentle whump, whump, whump, of the helicopter blades, Paul Jollie listened to the last thirty seconds of the mp3 over and over again. He’d put the earpieces of his ipod underneath the bulky headphones to try and drown out the noise of the ancient Huey he was now sat in. He was studying the photographs of the living room of the old croft where the attack had happened. He tried to visualise the knock at the door, the surprise of the occupants, that final desperate struggle and what had happened after the tape stopped, after the bloody violence ended. He had listened to the MP3 over and over again, studying to every nuance of Joe Wyndhams voice as he described the Minister and that final line, the voice of the Minister himself; that drawn out Scottish brogue dripping with menace. No matter how many times he listened, he couldn’t gather any further information from it and yet every time he listened to the recording the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. (more…)

Father Cane rested the gun’s tip on the woman’s clammy forehead. She didn’t even stir, lost in her final nightmares. The priest began reciting the old prayer:

“Dust to dust, we are but earth and we return to it.”

Her pulse was weak; he could barely feel the trickle of blood underneath her cold skin. It wouldn’t be long now, not at all.

While his voice recited the prayer as much for the old woman as for the family gathered around her bed, inside his mind the priest prayed for God’s help. He felt old, and the gun was heavy in his hand. An unfamiliar fear was clutching his heart with cold fingers, and the arthritis in his joints was angrier than usual. They were all bad signs that made him uneasy. (more…)

Really, it is only when one comes to write ones memoirs that one finds oneself in remembrance of things that previously were forgotten. Perhaps ‘forgotten’ is too strong a word. Perchance, I had chosen not to relive the memory of those terrible days. Perchance, subconsciously I had chosen to push them back into the rear of my mind, to cover them over with memories of happier times: Garden parties and long firelight discussions with good friends, fine port and cigars: British summers and the resonant crack of leather on willow in a good game of cricket with which I used to occupy my life. Now, as I sit here in my London townhouse, recounting tales of excitement and derring-do on which I have occasionally embarked, I find I must tell this tale to complete my story. Although my hands tire easily now and I occasionally forget the spelling of words as old age seeps through my body, my memoirs will not be complete without the retelling of this ghastly tale. So I give you, (with more than a little reluctance for fear you think I should be sent to Bedlam), ‘The Island of the Ungodly Dead’. (more…)

-Prologue-

The team even had to be careful hosing down equipment and property after a particularly fierce engagement. Zombie flesh didn’t tend to stay solidly on the body, especially after death when they’ve had time to dry out. It flakes off like the ash from a cigarette, and a stray burst from a hose could aerosolize the stuff in a heartbeat. You didn’t have to worry about infection from it since the virus couldn’t survive the air, and it wasn’t “direct fluidic contact” like those USAMRIID boys had called it. But the flesh was vile, necrotic, and a breeding ground for all kinds of bacteria. If ingestion or inhalation didn’t kill you in a day or two, the bacterial infection you were guaranteed to make you pray for death before it evaporated away after a few weeks. (more…)