A Pound of Flash Read online

  Zack poked his head out the door and looked up and down the street, making sure the coast was clear. Then he darted across the road to the house immediately opposite ours and shut the front door. Gary stood and watched, shaking his head, as he ran back.

  “That was stupid,” Gary said as Zach caught his breath. “You could have been seen.”

  “Just…shut up and…watch,” he replied.

  They stepped into the living room, ducked behind the window, and waited.

  Nothing happened.

  “I told you it was bullshit,” Gary said after twenty minutes had passed.

  “Shhhhh! Just fucking watch, would you?” Zack whispered back.

  Gary glared at him, but kept quiet. Zach pointed out the window, and they resumed their watch.

  After another ten minutes or so, the first zombie shuffled up the street. A male, naked from the waist down, its rotting wang swaying back and forth as it walked. The remnants of a black sport coat hung from its shoulders. On its right foot a dingy Nike scuffed the pavement. Its left foot was bare.

  As it passed, the two men heard it moan, and it looked at the house across the street. Sure enough, the thing changed course and ambled straight for the house’s front door. They heard the sound of its fists on the wood as it tried to bang its way inside. From their vantage point, they noted the bloody streaks as the creature beat its hands to pulp trying to break in.

  “That door is just like the one to this house,” Zach whispered. “Watch what happens to it.”

  Soon other zombies joined the first, probably attracted by the noise and activity. In no time at all a small crowd of about twenty ragged undead stood at the door, moaning and beating at the wood with decaying fists, or in some cases, ragged stumps.

  The crack of wood sounded up and down the street. A few seconds later, the sound came again. This time, the door caved inward, and the crowd of zombies funneled into the house.

  When they were all inside, Zack turned to Gary. “Still think its bullshit?”

  He shook my head.

  “I’m surprised you lived this long,” he said.

  Gary didn’t say anything, knowing Zach was right. It’d been three months since the dead took over the town. He’d been scraping along by hiding in dumpsters and abandoned hotels. He’d even spent a few nights in a tree house. It was only through sheer luck that Zack found him in a gas station, picking through what little food remained. He followed Zack here because he said he had plenty of food and was bored out of his mind with no one to talk to.

  “There’s plenty to eat in the kitchen,” Zack said proudly. “I’ve been collecting food for months. Mostly dry stuff. Cereal, snacks, rice, that sort of thing. The fridge doesn’t work, of course, so there’s no milk, but the pantry is full. We can grab a bite when those bastards leave.” He pointed toward the house across the street.

  Gary was just about to thank him when the crowd of zombies started shuffling out of the other house. Both men clamped their mouths shut. The undead had much better hearing than their decaying ears merited.

  They shambled off the porch and milled around in the street. Then one of them started heading to the front door of Zach’s house. The rest of the crowd fell in line behind the first, and soon the whole lot of them were coming, moaning and scuffing their way to the front porch.

  Zack and Gary exchanged looks of horror and fear.

  “Oh, shit,” Zack said. “You closed the fucking door again, didn’t you?”

  Gary tried to move his lips, but he couldn’t answer. The sound of fists pummeling the front door said it all.

  “Fuck!” Zack shot to his feet. “Follow me, quick!”

  Gary got up and ran after Zack. the sound of wood breaking behind him spurred Him on. They ran to the back of the house, and into what looked like a laundry room. Zack got on his hands and knees just as the front door gave with a loud crack. The sound of moans filled the house, accompanied by the soft shuffle of dead feet.

  Zack pulled up on a ring that Gary hadn’t noticed, and lifted up a trap door.

  “Get in there, quick!” Zack whispered.

  Gary needed no prodding. the moans and footsteps were getting closer. He crawled through the trapdoor and jumped from the ladder, landing painfully on his left leg about ten feet down.

  He could barely see. The only light came from the door, and that disappeared as Zack closed it. Gary heard the sound of a latch, and the next thing he knew there was a hand on his arm.

  “Shhhhhhh,” Zack whispered, so quietly Gary almost didn’t hear.

  Above them, the sounds of slow feet padded through the house. As Gary’s eyes adjusted, he noted small cracks of light above him. Shadows moved over the cracks, sending tiny clouds of dust falling into the basement. The moaning grew constant, even frantic, as the zombies searched for prey.

  They know we’re here, he thought. They just can’t find us.

  The grip on his arm tightened as one zombie walked into the laundry room above them.

  This is it, Gary thought. We’re dead.

  The zombie stopped moving. The seconds ticked into hours as he waited for the thing to yank on the trapdoor. Through the cracks, he saw a vague shadow, but couldn’t tell if the zombie was male or female. not that it mattered. With the house full of the things, they wouldn’t escape.

  Finally, the zombie turned and left the laundry room, moaning its disappointment. Gary breathed a sigh of relief.

  The two waited in the basement for another half hour while the zombies stepped through the house. Finally, the creatures gave up, and Gary heard their soft footfalls fade toward the front of the house.

  After thirty minutes passed with no sounds of moaning from up above, he turned to Zack, barely visible in the dim light.

  “I think they’re gone,” he said.

  Zack nodded. “How’s your leg?”

  “Hurts like a mother fucker.”

  Zack let go of his arm and stood up. He walked to the far side of the room. “Can you walk?”

  Gary tested the leg. The pain nearly made him yelp. Only the thought of the zombies out in the street kept him silent. “No, I think it might be broken.”

  Light flared to his right. Zack held up a Coleman lantern. “Good,” he said. “That’ll make this easier.”

  “What?” Gary squinted in the sudden flare of the lantern. he couldn’t see much. He was in a concrete basement with a steel table and some reddish-brown stains on the walls and floor. The rest of the room was filled with row after row of empty shelves. gary looked around, wondering what the room was for, when suddenly he realized what the reddish-brown stains were.

  Zack approached, the Coleman in one hand and a large hunting knife in the other.

  “Oh, fuck!” Gary said.

  “Yeah. Sorry, man,” Zach said. “I lied about the food. I’m all out.”

  Zack stabbed the hunting knife into Gary’s throat. Gary tried to scream, but it only came out as a wet gurgle.

  “I won’t be out for long, though,” Zack said.

  Neighbors

  by David McAfee

  Jim crawled out from under the car, his hands and shirt covered with grease. His neighbor, Elton, bounded up.

  “Is it ready?” Elton asked.

  “Yep. You can take ‘er out now, if ya wanna.”

  “Sweet!” Elton jumped behind the wheel. “Wanna come?”

  “Can’t. I’ve got chores. Lights to change, dog shit to clean.”

  “All right, then.” Elton started the car and pulled out of the driveway.

  Jim chuckled. The car had just enough brake fluid to get to the Interstate, then Elton would be in a world of hurt.

  “Shoulda kept his damn dog off my yard,” he said.

  Devil Music

  By David McAfee

  He sat in the den, bourbon in hand, listening to Motley Crue’s You’re All I Need. The song suited his mood. He drank deep, feeling the warmth as the liquor trickled into his belly. His tears were gone, now. The a
lcohol must have dried him out.

  So many times, I said you’d only be mine...

  The honesty of the lyrics struck him. So true. Maybe Tipper Gore was onto something, after all.

  Sometimes love’s better off dead.

  “Sorry, babe,” he said to his wife’s corpse. “But like the song says, ‘Killing you helped me keep you at home.’”

  Goth Chick

  By David McAfee

  She broods in a corner, dressed in black and lace, doing her best to convince everyone she meets that she is a vampire, and that her people are just misunderstood.

  Her people. Riiiight.

  I’m wearing my dumbest Goth-kid outfit. Pulled it right out of my Halloween chest. It’s so hard not to laugh as she tells me what vampires are really like, but it works. She agrees to come home with me.

  She screams when she sees my real face. The one with the fangs. I guess she isn’t ready for reality. Too bad.

  Fantasy time is over.

  One of Four

  By David McAfee

  “You know who I am, Father.” It isn’t a question.

  The priest looks at me, his youthful eyes brimming with idealistic forgiveness, and nods.

  “I know who you claim to be,” he says as he steps past the nurse – a burly bitch named Swanson - and starts to close the door behind him.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Swanson says, holding up her left hand. She casts a meaningful glance at her missing ring finger. The scar is an angry red. “He’s a vicious old bastard.”

  Her diamond ring had hurt like hell when it passed through my bowels, but the look on her face had been worth it. Maybe I wouldn’t do shit like that if they’d give me something to eat.

  The priest ignores her missing finger. “He won’t harm me,” he says. “He can’t.” With that, he closes the door, while Swanson shakes her head and resumes her duties.

  I can’t keep the snarl out of my voice. “Damn right I can’t.” I jerk forward in the bed, but the straps around my bare, sunken chest and arms hold me in place. I know it’s useless. I’ve been trying to break them for years now with nothing to show for it but raw, bleeding skin. They are too strong, especially in my pathetic state. They never feed me in this place, preferring to keep me weak and pliable.

  He takes a seat by my bed, his soft white robe settles around him as though it’s made of air. On his finger a hefty gold ring winks in the dim light of my cell. I catch a faint whiff of cologne. I can’t place the brand, but it smells expensive. It probably is. The Catholic Church looks after its own.

  I smile, revealing a mouth full of sharpened teeth. I had them filed to points long before the priest was even born. In my emaciated state, I must look like a fleshy skull smiling at him. He blanches, but doesn’t look away.

  “They told me about those,” he says. “Do you think you frighten me?”

  “Don’t I?”

  He shakes his head, then reaches into a pouch at his side. He pulls out a vial of water and a rosary and sets them both on the nightstand. “Are you ready?”

  I chuckle. A thick, wet gurgle. It’s all I can manage. “You can’t exorcise me, Father. I’m not a demon.” My belly growls. In the confines of the tiny room it sounds like an angry bear.

  “We will see.” He pulls the stopper from the vial and begins to pray. I can’t understand a word of it. Must be Latin. He makes a motion with the vial that looks like a cross, then splashes the water on my face and chest. It’s cold, but that’s it. My skin doesn’t boil or blister, and I don’t scream.

  He looks closer, his expression slightly puzzled. Then he reaches down and dips his finger into one of the drops on my chest, swirling it around in a circle.

  “Careful, Father,” I say. My belly rumbles again, accentuating my warning.

  His eyes shoot from my chest to my face, his disbelief plain to see. His finger raises off my flesh and hovers a few inches away. Almost close enough to bite, but not quite. He is probably thinking of Swanson’s scar.

  “It’s true, then,” he whispers.

  I nod. “But you already knew that.”

  He looks at the vial in his hand. “I had to be sure.”

  I nod again. “Of course.”

  “We’ve been waiting for you.” His words are slow, deliberate. The fear that escaped him earlier now weighs heavily on every syllable. “How long do we have?”

  I shake my head. “You should have come to me sooner.”

  “We didn’t know.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  He closes his eyes and turns away, his face red. Maybe he didn’t know, but his colleagues did. They had plenty of time to fix things, and instead they went on as they always had. Only now, when it’s too late, do they think of me, locked away in their prison. Had they come to me sooner, I could have saved them. Any of my brethren could. But we waited. We wanted to see what they would do.

  Now we know.

  The earth begins to shake beneath us. His eyes snap open.

  “Are the others here, already?” he asks.

  “Not yet, but they are coming.”

  He nods, tears sparkling in his eyes. He clutches his Bible and his rosary to his chest, and again begins praying in Latin. The only word I recognize is fames, and only because it’s my name. A few moments later the roof of the building crashes down on him. The weight of the rubble snaps my bonds, and I am able to rise on shaky legs.

  I leave the room and walk through the hallways, listening to the screams of people dying around me. Swanson is buried under a pile of debris. Her unblinking eyes stare up toward the ceiling.

  The others are indeed coming, just as I told the priest. They have quite a distance to travel, of course. Currently, War is in the Middle East, Pestilence is in Africa, and Death...Death is everywhere.

  I step out of the ruined building and look back just as the front, a huge brick and marble facade that sports a gleaming bronze Crucifix, tumbles to the earth. The Crucifix lands on a woman in a black and white habit, who sees me standing nearby and begs for mercy in Portuguese.

  Too late, I remind myself.

  I raise my thin, bony arms to the sky, waiting for instructions. They are not long in coming.

  My name is Famine, and it’s time to go to work.

  Soup

  By David McAfee

  The prisoner screamed.

  She did her best to ignore him while she dipped her spoon into the bowl. The broth was excellent. It was an old family recipe.

  He screamed again.

  She turned to him. “That’s very rude. I’m trying to eat.” She pointed the spoon at him. He stood chained to the wall, bloody bandages wrapped around his left hand. She dipped the spoon into the bowl again. It came up with a finger, which she gleefully popped into her mouth.

  “OW!” She pulled a gold ring from her teeth. “Hey, you never told me you were married.”

  Gamer Beware

  By David McAfee

  “Damn,” Brad swore, and threw down the controller. He’d just been shot through the head. “I’m so fucking done with this game. It sucks, anyway.”

  Someone knocked on his door. He opened it to find a man in a black suit standing on his porch.

  “Hello, sir. Are you Brad?”

  Brad nodded.

  The stranger pulled out a pistol and pointed it at Brad’s head.

  “Whoa! What the fuck?” Brad’s hands hit the sky.

  The man sighed. “Didn’t you read the license agreement?”

  “Wh..what?”

  “Your game. You died.”

  “But it’s just a game.”

  “Yes, and you lost. Goodbye, sir.”

  Cancun

  By David McAfee

  Screaming in the next room, cut short by a thick wet gurgle. She knew what that meant. The big man had done as he promised.

  A door closed, and footsteps sounded out in the hall. Her door creaked open, and the killer stepped in. She’d been expecting it, but the sight of her husband’
s dripping head still shocked her.

  The killer tossed the head into the room. An evil grin split his face as he grabbed her arms and kissed her hard.

  “It’s done,” he said, still smiling.

  “So I see,” she replied. “You all packed for Cancun, baby?”

  Author’s Note:

  The next story, Alone on the Mountain, was written as part of an upcoming anthology based on what would happen if the Yellowstone Caldera were to erupt. For those of you who read One Last Dinner Party, the bonus story in The Lake and 17 Other Stories, you know what sort of disaster that would be. In short, the immediate area around the crater would become an instant wasteland.

  The ash cloud created by the eruption would spread over the whole country, choking the life out of everything from California to the Appalachian Mountain chain, which is where Alone on the Mountain takes place. The ash, once it entered the lungs, would solidify almost immediately, making it impossible for the victim to draw breath.

  The anthology is called Land of Ash, and will be available from David Dalglish in the not too distant future. Along with One Last Dinner Party and Alone on the Mountain, there will be plenty of other stories by Dalglish and a handful of other authors to keep you entertained – and worried – for days.

  --David McAfee

  Alone on the Mountain

  By David McAfee

  3 Days Left

  He lived off the grid. He hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to anyone in years, but if he had, that’s what he would have told them; that he lived off the grid. His house was a shallow cave in the side of the mountain. The lip of the cave, along with the slight overhang, kept the rain out, and during the winter his door - nothing more than a few branches woven together and covered in brush to make it like foliage - kept the heat in. He’d chosen the place because of the natural chimney at the back. He could light a fire to keep the cave warm while the smoke traveled through the crack in the ceiling and went only God knew where.