Julia Legare

A few years ago I was spending some time with friends exploring old, supposedly haunted, places. We were at the Edisto First Presbyterian Church, where a girl named Julia Legare was buried in her family mausoleum in 1852.

People reported hearing unearthly screams time and time again, but never investigating the cause of it. Fifteen years later, when they opened the door to the mausoleum to inter the next family member who had died, finding her corpse huddled in the corner next to the door, arms outstretched as if still trying to find the exit.

Well, my friends thought it would be a funny idea to shut the giant stone door (which was originally open) behind me and pick me up in the morning. The bastards left me there… I tried and tried, using all of my strength, but I couldn’t budge it, it had taken four people to put it in place. In the dark, I resigned myself to the night ahead of me.

Now, I normally don’t frighten easily, but sitting there in the relatively small place, surrounded by a looming pressure that I couldn’t begin to explain, the darkness itself seemed to try to consume me. From all around it felt like weight was pressing against my skin, making even breathing hard. I sat in the dark for what must have been hours.

Then I heard the scratches. They were faint at first, I was sure it was my imagination, but soon they became more and more frantic as time passed. I huddled up in one of the corners farthest from the door and tried to cover my ears but nothing could stop the growing cacophony. This all may have lasted for a few minutes, but each second was an unbearable eternity.

Then, a loud scream echoed through the darkness, it was a wail of unrestrained pain and fear. The scratching stopped. For the first time I could distinctly make out the sound of a girl sobbing to herself, the pitiful gasping of one without a shred of hope left.

I felt such sorrow at the moment, such pain, that I think I forgot how to be afraid. In my heart all her suffering seemed to resonate. Inexplicably, I found myself apologizing aloud for everything that had happened to her. Hell, a part of me wanted to reach out and feel for a body to hug, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it for fear that I truly would find one.

I don’t know whether or not she heard me or was even aware of my presence, the sobbing continued and I could again hear fingers against the stone slab that was the tomb door.

I fell asleep at some point, which I felt was a merciful gift from the fates. I’m not sure how long I was out, but I was woken by a loud and powerful thud as the door slammed against the ground outside. I could tell from the light gray outside that daybreak was near, so I must have slept for at least a few hours.

I stumbled outside and went to a small unlocked prayer house. I think previously it was a segregated mini-church, but regardless, I leaned against the door and waited nervously until my ‘friends’ arrived. I approached them as they clustered around the fallen door, two of them were kneeling next to it with faces of shock.

There were bloody streaks covering the interior of the door, some with light scratches from fingernails, many without. I think now that she must have shrieked when they broke away from her hands, but I can’t be sure.

At first, they looked to me, then checked my hands, then nervously glanced at one another. I was rightfully pissed with them and told them every detail of what I remembered, wanting them to know what I had been put through.

Finally, after I grudgingly got into the car and we started to head back, someone spoke up. My friend said to me “We were afraid to say anything, but look at your face.”

I later found out that many times people had tried to permanently seal the entrance to the mausoleum, including enough heavy locks and chains that it would require heavy equipment to remove it, only to have it found torn open with the door lying on the ground once more. This was in the 1980s, the last attempt of many through the decades. It seemed like some force was ensuring that it was impossible to ever repeat the mistakes of the past. This is something I am understandably quite grateful for, but to this very day I am chilled to the bone when I think of what happened that night.

When I reached from the back seat and adjusted the rear-view mirror, I saw that there was blood caked on my face. Just like the streaks upon the stone slab, there were dark red lines on either side, as if someone had gently cradled my face with torn fingers as I slept that night, feeling the warmth of another for the first time in over a hundred years.

Exit

I know this road better than I know myself. I know each of Interstate 85’s 250 odd miles; I know that it takes me an average of 3 hours and 26 minutes to drive west, from Charlotte to Atlanta, and an average of 3 hours and 29 minutes to make the same trip going eastward. I know the price of gas at a dozen stands, and the closing hours of each fast food shack and greasy diner. I know the curves of each low hill and I know each stand of pine and oak trees. I know the stretching dark of the long winter nights and the wet heat of the summer breeze. I know these things well because they are the totality of my existence now.

I know the names of each exit, westward and east. Batesville, Poplar Springs, Spartanburg. They tick through my head as I pass, but the Silver Creek Road exit is never among them. In three years of this endless loop, it has never appeared again. If I ever begin to doubt that it will, then I have nothing left.
The Silver Creek Road exit doesn’t exist on any map, or at least, it no longer does. It may have once, but like the road itself, it has been razed from the earth and from all memory and record. At the beginning, I spent long anxious days poring over old surveying maps and neighborhood planning documents, searching in vain for any sign of the road, or the exit I know I had taken. When there was nothing left in the libraries and city halls to comb through, no meek county official left to interrogate, wide-eyed and frothing, then I began the drive.

I’ve been through two cars, and have burned through my savings and now survive off a stack of rapidly vanishing credit cards. I have no address to receive bills, and no intention of paying, and have been filling my trunk with small plastic gallon jugs of gas, while the cards are still accepted. When this filthy and battered Oldsmobile gives up the ghost at last, I suppose I will have to learn to hitchhike.

I first took the Silver Creek Road exit three summers ago, on that last night that I was with Bobbie. I have in my head just a few frozen frames of that ride left, her black curls bouncing like springs in the evening breeze, her gapped toothed and freckled smile, and the slow summer crossing into night.
We’d made that drive together a dozen times, between our apartment in Atlanta and her brother in Charlotte. There was nothing remarkable that night. We simply ran low on gas and took the first exit we came across. I remember vividly passing beneath the green and sparkling white letters of the exit sign, and onto the sharp curve of the road.

The street turned perpendicular from the light and noise of the highway into inky darkness of the pine trees. Nothing remarkable to separate it from a hundred other country roads, but as the lights of the car penetrated the darkness, a vague and trembling unease passed through me. The tall rustling pines seemed black even under the blue white of the headlamps, and the road began to rapidly degrade, becoming pocked and uneven just a few dozen yards in.

All the roar and glare from the highway seemed swallowed up behind us, and there were no lights ahead of us for as far as we could see. My insides felt tight and knotted, and I turned to Bobbie. She had her skinny legs tucked to her chest and looked at me, quizzically, one eyebrow raised, with a small crooked smile. Her small bravery seemed to dissipate the chill that had been steadily rising in me.

I looked forward to the road, I felt a sudden sharp pressure on my chest. Stretching out in front of the wan light of the headlamps, the road ended. There was a small field of shattered asphalt slabs, and then the forest swallowed up every trace under a blanket of rotting pine needles. Something twinkled brightly between the trees, and I strained to pick it out of the darkness. It was the smooth chrome of a bumper, attached to a pitted and rusting car, completely enclosed by the towering pines.

A wave of panic and disorientation crawled down my scalp and my knuckles went white on the wheel. Bobbie placed her hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed once.

“Cal,” she said, firm and evenly, “we need to turn around now, honey.”

There was a tremulous quality to the last word, as the surreal darkness seemed to further constrict around us. I heard her take a little gasp of air. I began to turn the wheel when I realized how narrow the road had become. It had been two lanes when we started, I was sure of this, but the forest seemed to be pressing against both sides of the car, far to narrow to turn around. Blood pounded in my temples, and I threw the car into reverse. The boughs of the trees scraped against both sides, soft whispering scratches from the needles and the soft thuds of thicker branches.

Bobbie held her hand on my knee, calming and reassuring even as panic threatened to overwhelm me. I could see the highway moments later, a thin cloud of hazy illumination over the rise behind us, and the forest seemed to part like curtain. Bobbie released her held breath and giggled softly, and I felt a wave of elation wash over me. I turned to her to share relieved smiles, and I locked with her dark eyes when the siren sounded, once and sharp in the silence, and bright blue and red strobes flashed through window.

The police cruiser was parked in the center of the road, crouched low and silent like a predator. The familiar red and blue flicker bathed the street in weird crooked shadows. As I turned off the engine, there was the slam of a car door and I could hear the heavy thud of boots on the road, pacing towards us.

The comforting normalcy of the sight of a police officer began to drain away as he approached in the dark. He carried no flashlight, and I saw his gloved hands hanging straight at his sides in the side mirror as he walked towards me. He was dressed in thick winter wear, with his high collar turned up, and his hat pulled low. He approached the window, and as he leaned straight from the waist to fix his black and beady eyes on mine, I realized just how thin and tall he was.

“License and Registration.” His voice was muffled and thick with a strange and choked drawl, almost unintelligible, and his lips seemed to move in manner counter to the shape of his words. The summer night air around him seemed to grow even warmer. There were no sounds, no wind in the pines, no chirp of insects.

I was mesmerized by the strangeness of what seemed, for all the world, to be an absurd imitation of a man. For the second time in as many minutes, I wondered fleetingly if I was dreaming. I could see now that he had no badge, and was simply dressed in unremarkable black clothes.

The overwhelming fog of dread and panic seemed to condense all at once around me, and singular animal command to flee, at once, drove my hands forward towards the keys.

He was quicker. One black gloved fist slammed into my temple, and a shower of stars exploded over my left eye, and the world tipped sideways.

I remember him dragging me from the car, the shocking heat in his grasp seeming almost to burn. I remember hearing Bobbie’s screams and seeing in dizzy glimpses her brief flight, before being swept into those inhumanly long and slender arms. One glove came off in the struggle and I saw the pale white hand, like an immense knobby spider, each leg tipped with a black and curved talon. The world swam around me, wild and burning, and I struggled to move my limbs.

Bobbie was limp in his arms as he approached me again, and I struggled weakly to my feet. Our eyes met in the red and blue strobe; he looked nothing like a man now, his once pale mockery of humanity was stretching and distending away into some unthinkable shape. He did a very human thing then, and smiled, lips peeling back to reveal rows of thin white needles.

I was running before I knew it, bolting dizzy and weaving down the road. I was vaulting across the shoulder of the highway when my rational mind clawed it’s way to the surface. Coward! it screeched at me. My legs shuddered to stop, and sudden painful guilt flooded my lungs like fluid and stole my breath. Bobbie’s face loomed in my vision and I felt a profound and clear shame pressing down on me.

That’s when the car struck me, sliding on locked and screeching tires. I was tossed into the concrete median, striking the back of my skull. I woke up three days later, wrapped in plaster and flooded with morphine.

Gaffney, Blacksburg, Kings Mountain. The exits pass by, each one decreasing the chance of seeing Silver Creek Road exit on this go around. It was impossible to accept in those first few days of maddening research that Silver Creek Road had simply vanished, and so I made the drive myself, carefully reading each sign. When it failed to manifest itself, I made the drive again, this time at night. And then again.

Sometimes there’s a zen-like quality to the repetition, the familiar patterns of predictability and order. The immutable order of the land, the locked procession of towns and trees is comforting as it continues to grind my hope away like a millstone. Most days, I can believe and accept that Bobbie is gone. There is always that shadow of doubt, that crystalline thread of hope, but it feels hollow in my hands now.

There is one thing I must believe: if it appeared to us once, it will to me again. And if I can find it, that pale horror in a man’s skin, I will kill it. If the bullets fail, I need only a few moments to ignite the trunk’s cargo, and to lure murdering thing to the me.
I swear to the stars, I will never stop looking.

By: Josef K.

When The Rain Comes

It begins gently at first, softly falling like a child’s tears. It is a sad thing, but not so unusual and wholesome in its way. And the wind lightly blows, almost tenderly caressing your face. This will not last, but it’s nice isn’t it?

In the beginning there were two and they knew love of a kind.

The rain comes down harder now, no longer a child’s gentle weeping, and not quite an adult’s passionate cries for a lost love. It is somewhere in between. Then too, the wind picks up, catching your hair, causing it to fall across your face. It speaks, in the way that wind speaks, a soft moan, nothing more yet.

Time passed, and the two brought forth children. The children built and bred and grew. Thousands, then millions.

The rain has not changed, it does not fall with greater intensity, but in the distance the faint sound of rolling thunder and the flash of a great light. The voice of the wind calls out to it, the clouds gather more strongly.

The two were not man and woman, but that is close. In the full distance of time, they grew apart and so their children suffered. She was not happy with Him, but She would not leave Him.

The rain falls strongly now, if you were not wet before, you are now. The wind’s moan has changed to a howl and the lightning grows closer. The air is charged with possibility.

She loved them, but to Him they were a barrier, something that caused the coldness that had grown between them. Perhaps that is why She said nothing when they drove Him out.

The storm is a storm in truth now, the rain stings a little as it falls, water dripping from your hair. The wind’s howling pierces your clothing, finding any gap and driving itself through it, perhaps seeking your warmth. You should find shelter, but something is about to happen.

Generation upon generation grew, lived, and died. They forgot Her name and His. She was still with them though and they still loved Her, in their way, but He, they lost entirely. He watched from beyond, unable to touch Her. Sometimes He lashed out at the skies.

The lightning is close now, illuminating the entire night sky, the thunder crackling within a minute or so of the lightning. It should feel cold, shouldn’t it? The wind is strong and the rain is fierce, but you are not cold. There is an energy building.

A crack has formed in his millennia old prison. He feels it and rages against it, throwing His might towards it. The crack widens.

You stand there, silently staring at the raging heavens as lightning cracks open the vault of the sky. The lines of light hang suspended in the air, after they should have ended. Something is coming.

He feels freedom. He goes to it; soon He will be with His bride once more.

He is coming.

He is angry.

By: Jimmy Reinstatler

God's Mouth

I huffed and puffed under my breath as I stared into God’s Mouth. I felt like the Big Bad Wolf ready to interrupt the innocent little pigs as they hurriedly fortified their makeshift homes. I grinned at this thought and then turned my head to look for Margaret. She was a couple of feet down the hill from the entrance of the cave, holding a walking stick close to her petite breasts. “Hurry up!” I called down to her. I turned back to the cave, still grinning. An old, rotted sign outside read ‘God’s Mouth Cave: Keep Out!’ What a tired cliché.

Margaret finally made it to the entrance and stood beside me, almost doubled over and out of breath. I looked down and smiled. “Check it out!” I laughed. “God’s mouth. Wonder where Jesus’ anus is?” I chuckled to myself. Margaret was less amused.

“Give me the damn water bottle,” she said, exasperated. The open bottle met her lips, and for a moment I felt peaceful in a way, watching her drink the water. Actually I take that back. The ‘peaceful’ comment, I mean. It was more of a feeling that was sort of hard to put my finger on or give a name, but I could settle for a nice ‘content’. Content seemed to be one of those words that manifest itself when natural, human words seemed to fail. Again, an utter cliché, but it felt good to feel a strange, mixed-up sort of happy for once.

I sighed and turned my flashlight on. I pointed it into the cave. Black. God’s Mouth. This seemed like the antithesis of a Holy Spirit. I turned again to Margaret. “You ready?” I asked. She was finally standing straight up. She nodded. I clapped a friendly hand to her back and we walked into God’s Mouth.

The inside was not unlike the preview I had glimpsed outside with my flashlight. Dark, dismal, and endlessly black. It seemed to stretch endlessly, no matter how I positioned my flashlight. The rocky terrain was damp and imposing. The last natural light slowly disappeared behind Margaret and I as we made our way deeper and deeper. I found it strange how soft and compelling the world around me now appeared, despite the stalactites, stalagmites, and other various rocky formations being so jagged. It seemed that even amongst the pointed teeth of God I could lay down and rest there forever. It was comfortable.

Apparently Margaret didn’t agree. She shivered uncomfortably under my arm. I raised my eyebrows. “Need your coat?” I asked. I tried to look at her and make non-verbal communication as explicit as possible until I realized that we were lost inky blackness of the Mouth. I bit my lip and waited, but she didn’t respond. For a couple minutes we walked in silence. She stopped and stood motionless. I stopped, too.

“Why the hell are we even in here?” she said. She sounded irritated. I shrugged – more to appease myself than her – and shoved my flashlight under my face. Bladed shadows obscured half my face, the other half illuminated in a wretched mask. “Spooky!” I cried, chuckling. She didn’t move.

I sighed. “I thought you wanted to go,” I said. I noticed how my voice echoed against the cave walls at any volume. “I mean,” I began again, scratching at my chin, “You did say you wanted to go see some nature for our vacation. And you did sound impressed when I told you about my visit to Mammoth Caves a couple years back. So…” My voice trailed off. I could still sense her irritation.

“No,” she said. I frowned. “No, you wanted to go here. I wanted to go to a beach or something. But no, a cave. A cave, Nathan!” She sounded more like the Big Bad Wolf now. “I know that you have this weird fetish for spelunking or something, but I don’t really want to be dragged in to it. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love to go on a trip and get into nature and fresh air, but this,” I could hear her arms flail and gesture about in the thick air. “This is cave air, not fresh air. This air is practically fermenting! Plus, isn’t this illegal? Can we please just leave?”

We both stood there. The only sound that could be heard was the electricity in the air being stifled and smothered by the damp atmosphere. Finally, I began to walk. I didn’t hear Margaret follow me, but I kept moving forward. Then, “Nathan,” she said, “Stop. Please stop.” So I stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she said. I could hear her moving closer to me. “I’m tired and I’m not used to running and climbing around and the like. I’m just tired.”

“It’s okay,” I said. She gripped my arm. “Really. It’s fine.” I shook my head. “Which way is out? I don’t remember.” I could feel Margaret physically pause. Neither of us could remember. Somehow, in the confusion of our argument, I’d forgotten which way we had been moving. Idiot, I thought to myself, I should have brought a goddamn rope or something to trail from the entrance of the cave. I had to take action, so without much thought, I turned 180 degrees and said, “This way.”

We walked for what seemed to be hours. My feet were tired and sore, and I could hear Margaret’s groans from behind me. She held my hand tightly. I felt terrible. This was my fault.

Then, I froze. “Hey. Hey,” I said, “Put your hand out. Feel this rock.” I could hear Margaret’s bare palm press against the stone. “Isn’t this, like…abnormally warm?” I said. She didn’t say anything. I began to work my way along the wall, feeling it as I went, shining the flashlight in front of me. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain on my head as the ceiling of God’s Mouth met with my scalp.

“Ow! Shit!” I shouted.

“Oh, Nick, are you okay?” Margaret asked. She seemed on the verge of panic now.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Please, calm down. We’ll get out of here soon, I promise.”

I started again, pointing my flashlight upwards now to see the ceiling above me. It seemed to be getting narrower. That was strange. “Listen, uh, Margaret, babe,” I said through clenched teeth, “I think we gotta turn around.” Margaret sighed next to me.

Again, we walked for a decent length. I kept my flashlight pointed upwards this time. Sure enough, the space in the cave seemed to become smaller and smaller. If there was any resonating light left in God’s Mouth aside from my flashlight, I’m sure Margaret would have been able to see the whites of my eyes, spreading in panic. We were completely lost.

I let go of Margaret’s hand and began to feverishly feel my way along the walls. “No, Nathan!” I heard her shout. I kept going. We had to get out. If we were lost, nobody would be able to find us.

I kept feeling along the wall until I abruptly hit a corner. “Fuck,” I said aloud. “Margaret, this seems to be a dead end.” I spun around on my heel. “Margaret?” No answer. Shit.

I began to repeat my process again, almost running as I felt the wall run past my fingertips. Cool, damp rocks and jagged spears. Suddenly, I found myself at a corner again. “Fuck fuck fuck,” I shouted. “Margaret!” I was belting her name out now. In the corner of the cave’s maw where I had been thwarted so many times already, I heard a noise. It sounded like muffled static from a television. I pressed my ear against the rock. It seemed to be getting even warmer now. I heard the faint sounds of Margaret on the other side of the rock. She was screaming.

“No no no,” I said. “No no no no no.” I began running haphazardly into the walls around me. With dawning realization came a wave of sheer horror. There was no entrance. There was no exit. Only these four corners and me.

I could feel blood begin to trickle from the cut I managed to get by bashing my body into the cave’s walls. They were closing in on me. They were coming in for the kill, and soon they would be pressing in on my skull and crushing my rib cage.

I sat there for hours, waiting for death. My flashlight was becoming dim and blinking. Finally, I felt the soft touch of these rocky walls press against my back. I began to cry as I lay down on the ground. I let my flashlight roll on the small hills of stone. As I quietly stayed prone, tears dripping down my face, I turned and looked at the flashlight. Its last, fading beams of light pointed at something not far away from my face. I squinted in the darkness. My eyes widened and I felt tears fall even harder from my face. The rocks were piercing my skin now and blood dripped from all sides.

There, in the last light of my flashlight, was the appetizer. The spotlight shone on a hand whose nails were painted red, and I screamed in agony as I watched God’s Mouth chew its latest meal.

By: The Abracadaver

Imperfect Transition

I was sitting in the upstairs office of the Museum with a cup of coffee when it happened. It had been a long day, and I’d set the work experience kid the seemingly unfuckupable task of dusting the exhibits- after repeating my warning, of course, that some of them must not be touched or opened. A terrified scream, quickly strangled by a building-shaking thump and an awful rending sound, brought me rushing downstairs.

The mirror room- I knew it. In there, there hung an ancient mirror, about a foot around, made of polished obsidian. Behind the glass walls of its display case, it was harmless- although people amusingly reported seeing the face of an evil hag in it on occasion. Looking at it unprotected was madness, though- certainly for those without my knowledge of the old ways.

I arrived in the mirror room, and a horrible smell hung in the air. On the floor lay half a body- the lower half, still in the clothes I recognised from earlier. The skin had been stretched purple and torn away, and the organs inside that hadn’t been torn free leaked their contents onto the floor. The legs were at the bottom of a maroon spray that started below the wooden case of the mirror, and the hipbone lay almost against the wall.

The case was broken- the wooden sides pushed outwards. Clumps of hair, matted with skin and blood, stuck to the frame of the mirror. Concentrating now, I stepped in front of the black disc, my sandals carefully placed either side of the bile-sprayed limbs and pool of blood on the floor. Looking into the dark reflection of the room, I saw my double once more. In her hand was a pale arm that led down to a broken form, and a trail of darkness. Sure enough, when she lifted the half-corpse into the air, I recognised the shattered and stretched face.

By: Ultra

Freak

The freak meandered through a group of the undead. It was nearing nightfall, and he began to head back home. His pack had plenty of food in it, and he shouldn’t have to leave his house again for another week or so. Unless one of the zombie bastards punched its way in again. He didn’t carry a gun anymore. He had figured out a while ago that they couldn’t see him. It wasn’t necessary for him to carry a gun, because if they did realize he was there he would be dead long before he could pull out any kind of weapon whatsoever.

He did have to carry a weapon, in the earlier days, back when he was normal. Back before he became a freak. The people back then would try to steal food from him, attack him in delirious, starving rages. He killed quite a few people, in self-defense, but managed to detach himself from emotions. If he hadn’t, he would be dead right now. Or insane. He was free of the burden of emotions now, and all he ever felt was contentment. He used to be afraid, he used to hate himself, but now there was no reason for either. He hated himself for not being normal. He used to be normal, but now he was just a freak, a freak in a sea of normalcy. He was only content, not feeling too strongly towards positive or negative emotions.

In the early days, the infected, the zombies, the monster, the ghouls, the beasts, were the minority. They were the freaks. They were the repulsive ones. Now it was him. He was the freak. He was one of the last of his kind. He was the last of his kind he had seen in some time now. When the virus first hit, it wasn’t that big of a deal, just a few hurriedly covered stories in the local news, stuff like that. It wasn’t close to home at all, it was in little jungle villages in Africa. But it spread quickly. This sickness was spread through the air. Coughs, sneezes, bodily contact. It all spread the disease. The symptoms were subtle. And by the time you died and returned, it was too late, far too late.

When they first started to attack, when he first became a freak, he was with a few more like him. Hunted. They all stowed themselves away in a child’s treehouse. They had pulled the ladder up behind them, but they knew where the freaks were. They always knew. They were sitting, waiting. There were seven freaks in the treehouse total. Cramped, moist, afraid. A few of them had guns, and were firing wildly at the remade below. The freaks with guns were panicked, didn’t know how to shoot, and didn’t know to shoot for the brain. They were out of ammo and they had only destroyed one.

The reanimated shuffling men couldn’t see. Their eyes were either closed, filmed over, or missing. They smelled, felt vibrations through the air, heard, or maybe some unknown new sense. Nobody knew. It didn’t matter. You were dead if you weren’t immune. If you were immune, they couldn’t sense you in whatever way it was they used. But if you touched them, they would feel you. They would feel your warmth. And they would take it away. One of the monsters in the treehouse wasn’t immune. The rest were. The one who wasn’t immune was showing symptoms already, and they all knew it. They planned to push him down sometimes soon, but he was too overactive right now.

They had watched as he shot up on heroin a few minutes ago. He was too violent and unpredictable now. His rifle was now firing dry. He kept pulling back the bolt and firing anyways. Crazy bastard. The plan was to push him down when the opportunity was there, distract the re-living enough for the rest of them to get away. They didn’t know how smart the undead were yet, though. About twenty minutes later, he had finally begun to crash. Three of them exchanged a glance, and shoved him down. He hit the ground with a sickening crunch, and the undead closest to him stood up, walked over, broke his neck, delivered a swift blow to his skull and left him there.

That was when the monsters realized how smart the undead were. Maybe not completely genius, but they knew. They had killed the addict, and destroyed his brain to make sure he wouldn’t come back. They needed the food, after all. They had heard two rifles firing at once, and knew from experience a man could only fire one at once. They knew there was at least one other up there, probably more. They were surrounding the tree, waiting. The survivors were at a loss. “I…I think I know what to do,” a small, fortyish balding man piped. He was still wearing a button-up shirt and khaki pants, but he had ditched his dress shoes long ago. They only slowed him down. Everybody turned to him as one. “I think…since they can’t see us…since they can’t see us we could maybe go down and try to sneak through. A few of us will…won’t make it. But it’s a better chance then we would have.” They had all died but the freak. Now he was alone, and was glad. If he saw another survivor, he would probably kill it in disgust. And he had done it before. A few months ago, he had found one more survivor, dying of dehydration. He slit his throat. They couldn’t be spared to live. And now this. He had just mounted a crest, to see about twenty immune people hiking down the highway. He grimaced. The freak reached into his pocket.

Do not suffer a monster to live. He pulled forth a well-made pipe-bomb. He had made it over the course of a week. Why hurry when he had all the time in the world? He pulled a lighter out of the other pocket, and then stuffed the pipe bomb into his belt, covering it with his “Welcome to Margaritaville” shirt. He held the lighter in his left hand, hidden, then began to tromp down the hill, holding his hands high in a gesture of peace. They were all overjoyed to meet another like them. There was a child with them, but the rest were either middle-aged or in their early twenties. He awaited an opportunity to use his weapon, but none arose until later that night. And he didn’t even need the lighter. There was a fire in the middle of the camp, and they were all sleeping.

They had rigged up an alarm system consisting of soda cans on a string. They all slept soundly. He stepped outside the limits of the camp, and pitched the pipe bomb towards the fire. It detonated almost immediately. He ran from the blast of heat and smiled. He had stopped them from trying to overturn the world, how the world worked. They were re-organizing. That was not allowed. He had ended them all. He giggled, and headed back home.

By: Coby I.

The Doll

I gave her the doll on her birthday.

She loved it at first, told me it was so beautiful. That it’s hair was so soft and the dress was so pretty. She wouldn’t let it out of her sight for days. During the day she set it on the table, so she could see it while cleaning the house. During the night it sat next to the bed, looking at us sleep with big blue unmoving eyes.

But my wife’s love for the doll soon changed. Soon I noticed something was bothering here. I asked of course, but she wouldn’t tell me at first, said she was just being silly. But day after day she closed herself more and more for me. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. I pressed her, told her she would tell me what was going on right now or I would drag her to a doctor.

She finally broke and crying words came spilling out.

She then told me it was the doll. It scared her. She told me she had the feeling it was constantly watching her. Sometimes it even seemed like it moved.

This worried me and I went to take a look at the doll.

It sat motionless on the little table in the bedroom. The big blue eyes unchanged. I couldn’t help but sigh from relief a bit. Of course she’s not moving, she couldn’t have been.

I went to turn away, but then saw a tiny movement from the corner of my eye.

I turned back to the doll, picking it up from the table. I held my face close to the doll’s, staring into the eyes.
Something was moving.

I tried to concentrate, tried to look closer.

Yes, there it definately was, movement. But not from the eye itself, it was behind the eye.

Before I could register this the eye burst and out of it spilled at least ten wriggling maggots.

I dropped the doll in shock, backing away instinctively.

My wife yelled from the other room, asking me what was going on. I yelled back at her not to worry. I picked up the doll again, using a tissue to wipe away the maggots. Inside I saw more, pressing against the skin and the plastic outer layer.

So soon already. I had hoped she would have lasted longer.

I will have to get a new one for her, maybe keep it alive at first. That way it’ll last longer for sure.

While I throw away the old doll, I think about how my wife always says she loves the thick blonde curls of little Katie down the block.

Doesn’t she also have blue eyes?

By: Boudica.