THE MAN IN THE SUIT AND TIE slashed his wife’s throat. But no blood squirted from the wound he had made on her grayish, beige neck. Nor did that stop her progression towards him. He stumbled back into the china cabinet, some of the dishes inside falling, breaking. He ran around the kitchen table with the butcher knife still clutched in his hand. She shuffled slowly ( But not slowly enough for his tastes.) after him as he tipped the proud wooden chairs from the dinette set onto her path. When this did not impede her route he used the knife again: Stabbing at the spot where he thought her heart might be. The blade ran clear through with an apple slicing sound, but again, this seemed to have no effect on her at all. The weapon stayed lodged in her chest as he caught her off balance and pushed her to the floor. (more…)

Trapped
I am alive inside
This Hell on earth
For how much longer I do not know (more…)

I was just beginning to like my job as a resident at the hospital when the stool sample hit the fan. Talk of the Bird Flu stopped just as soon as the first city went up in flames. The news people at Fox tried to blame Al Qeida by throwing turbans on some of the un-dead and filming them as they attacked a military installation. Britt Hume defended the stunt by saying there was no proof the plague of zombies hadn’t been started by insurgents. As far as I was concerned, all the politics were outside my field, I was going to provide quality medical care, even if the patients were dead. (more…)

I woke to the sound of an unpracticed, halting note by note performance of the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” wafting quietly in from the rectory. It was early; bright morning light spun shimmering curtains of color through the stained glass windows of the church. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, popping my neck and cursing the pew that had served as my bed for the past two weeks. Things weren’t looking well. We were running dangerously low on supplies, the electricity had finally shut down on us the night before, and the baptismal fount we’d been using to bathe had since grown tepid and questionable for hygienic use. My brother Victor had ventured out for help and supplies two days ago, taking dad’s .9mm and the Tundra, our only working vehicle. We haven’t heard from him since. (more…)

They stagger, trip, curse in the furrows of the brown,
harvested field.
So old that their bodies rattle
like twigs and dried seeds, they steal their sight
from the gibbous moon, eat stalks and shucks
and chaff and clods of manure. (more…)

When the Cloud came it brought life to those who ought not have it anymore.

So Edwin Prace naturally headed off towards the cemetery.

He had three cans of free flowing salt with him, seventy-eight ounces in all, not counting the handful of little packets collected in his truck’s glove box from the drive-throughs of various fast food restaurants.

He hoped it would be enough. He said a little prayer, just in case. It serve well to be caught without enough salt when the Clouds came. (more…)

Dudley Wells, eager young reporter for the Ingham County Record, sat wedged between two farmers in the cab of a Ford F-150 pickup.

“So, Mr. Varney,” he asked the sunburned man driving the pickup. “What do you consider the greatest threat to today’s farmer?”

The large man snorted and spat a meteor of black tobacco juice out the window. “Are you serious?” he asked back. (more…)

“The skin taut drums tattooed their rhythm through the morass of the jungle growth of the Antibone Valley of Haiti. The ‘hungans’ the voodoo priests called out to the void and summoned the ‘Loa’ the intermediaries between the natives and the spirit of the ‘Mokadi’. The ‘Loa’ answered and they gave the power over the living dead, the zombies, to the voodoo priests.. (more…)

…but they pulled the rifle away from me, twelve hands, sixty fingers on the long barrel. It went off and one of the grey faces
exploded like a kicked, albino pumpkin. Now that the weapon was gone I could only try and re-close the door. (more…)

“You ever wonder if there was more. I mean. Than just this?” Gregory asked.

Melody slid a lighted cigarette into her mouth as she stared up the stars. She smiled as she folded her hands behind her head and she wriggled her bare toes as she stared up at the heavens. (more…)

I came to in a muddy stupor. Screaming, fucking screaming was my alarm clock, on the hood of my car, someone was being devoured. How I was still alive I had no idea, the G was picking Prick up and slamming him down on the hood by his ribs, I shook my head as clear as I could and grinned as the first thing I saw was the G’s greasy fingers dug completely into Prick’s ribs, to the first knuckle. His head cracked the windshield. He was still alive. (more…)