Tales of the Zombie Apocalypse (Issue #1 | August 2015) Read online

  "We have to hurry," Luke pleaded with his wife as they hobbled forward another handful of steps. But by now, several more of the zombies had circled the vehicle or mounted to the top of it in an effort to find the thing they needed most. At full speed, they were already to the couple. Luke again fired off a handful of shots, hitting one or two zombies in the stomach. As Luke tried to shield his wife with his own body, the biggest zombie, a lumbering beast with a shotgun blast to its chest, crashed into the couple, knocking them to the ground. Two more shots went off, and the scalp of the beast came off in another blast. Luke threw the weight off him and scurried backward.

  But now it was too late. Before he could even lift the gun, three of the undead were on his wife. Her confusion gave way to screaming, as they tore off her flesh and bit into her arms and legs. Luke stumbled backward and fired a shot that disappeared off into nowhere. When he fell backward and tried to regain himself, he watched as his wife's stomach was slashed open and his own child spilled from her. The animals tore it from her and sank their teeth into its new, wet flesh.

  Luke threw up. With what strength he had left, he climbed to his feet and pointed the gun to his temple. He stood there, watching as his wife began to slowly rise up, herself now one of the undead that only moments ago they had been trying to flee in terror. She still had the umbilical cord what seemed like feet of it, hanging about from the cavity of her belly.

  This was a new world, one Luke would never understand, one he could never fight against or even flee from.

  With hot tears streaming down his face, he took the gun from his head and fired several shots at the zombies before him as more began to join them. When they looked up at him, his wife among them, he saw the dead, vacant stare in her eyes and knew she was gone.

  If there was even a chance, he thought, he would have to survive. And turned around quickly, as he prepared to run as fast as he could. When he did, he was greeted with the full force of a previously unseen zombie at his back, as it ran right into him at full speed. As it sank its teeth into his neck and he felt his adam's apple being tore from its place, he fired one last shot from the pistol, which again went off into nowhere.

  “Fire And Blood”

  Story #6

  By

  Jack Blare

  In all the years since Janice became the county coroner she had never seen the morgue more packed. It was overflowing in fact, with corpses on tables and gurneys. It was night time and she was working overtime to deal with all the new bodies. Twelve so far. It didn't make sense. In every autopsy she could find no clear reason why these people had died. They were all of different ages and in perfect health and they all dropped dead within a few days. She turned away from Gregory, the cadaver she had been dissecting and walked to her computer to record her findings. "This is so odd. Something is up here, someone needs to know about this.

  Just as she typed out the final line of her email a pair of cold, grey hands wrapped around her throat. Gregory was no longer dead, despite the fact that he was already half dissected. Gregory didn't seem to realize that his guts were literally spilling out as he tore open the coroner's bare throat and began to feast on her raw flesh, his swollen stomach still exposed to the open air.

  "Someone get me the hell out of here!" Hannah screamed as she watched her neighbour's intestines being ripped out and spilling onto the soft grass out front of their typical suburban home, like horrible nightmare versions of the worms that came up when it rained. The thing had ripped open her neighbour's stomach and it was still chewing on one of her organs when it realized Hannah's presence. The thing slowly turned around and began to advance towards Hannah, who stood frozen in terror. It looked almost human save for the dead, emotionless eyes and rotting flesh exposing yellow, blood stained teeth through a gaping hole where its right cheek should have been.

  "I can't breathe. What is that thing? Oh God that woman is dead! I have to find my parents!" Hannah thought desperately. She turned, trying to run away down the street, but she was too slow. The flesh eating corpse tackled her to the ground, staining her nightgown red with the still fresh blood of her unfortunate neighbour.

  "Anyone, please help me! Get this thing off of me!" Hannah screamed and pleaded as she struggled against the creature. Its leering rotten face and bloody open jaws were mere inches away from her exposed neck, Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the pain when all of a sudden she heard a gun shot go off, as the blood of the zombies victims poured out all over her from a massive hole in its stomach. The creature keeled over, unable to move its mangled body but still moaning in an awful, inhuman way, those lifeless eyes still locked onto her, filled with an unholy, otherworldly hunger.

  Stunned, soaked in blood and disgusted, Hanna vomited all over the street. Gasping for breath, she wiped her mouth and looked up to see a man's weathered hand reach out to her.

  "Get up, now! We have to get out of here!" the man barked.

  He was dressed all in black leather and held a shotgun in his free hand. His hair was grey, his face grim and his eyes were distant, unreadable but alive, not like that... thing.

  She looked at the stranger, shouting desperately at him "No, I can't leave yet. I have to find my parents!"

  "If you stay here, you'll die! Or even worse, end up like one of them. We have to leave! Now!" he commanded grabbing her hand and forcing her to run in the opposite direction from her little house in the suburbs.

  Suddenly, she heard a familiar voice screaming in terror. "Oh god, mom! I have to go back! They're my parents!" she begged.

  "Leave them, we have to get out of here, they're as good as dead anyway." the man growled.

  "Please, help me save them, I'll do anything!" Hannah shouted hysterically. The man sighed, his weathered face chiseled into a scowl.

  The stranger looked at the girl, night gown bloody and tattered, face covered in free flowing tears and his expression softened. "Fine," he said gruffly. "Here, take this gun though. Trust me, you're going to need it tonight!" said the Stranger, as he pulled a Smith & Wesson revolver from a holster in his coat. "Now lets go, we don't have much time!" he ordered.

  The gun felt heavy in her shaky grip as she started running back towards her house, heart beating like a drum in her chest, only one thing on her mind, "I have to save Mom. She's ok. Dad is okay. Oh god I have to hurry!"

  Hannah recklessly threw open the front door, closely followed by the stranger and his shotgun. She turned, following the screams into the kitchen, then stopped dead, frozen with terror and disbelief. Her Father was slumped down on the ground with blood pouring from his head and neck. There was a gaping hole in his skull, as though something had tried to eat its way in. He gasped one last breath and fell still, blood forming a thick red puddle around his mangled corpse.

  "Dad! No!" she stammered.

  "He's gone, leave it. He's not your father anymore." shouted the Stranger

  "I have has to save her. Mom! I'm coming!" she shouted, following the sound of her mother's screams up the stairs and into the master bedroom.

  Hannah gasped in shock at the sight before her eyes. One of the monsters, these living dead, was crouched over her mother's prone form. Tears filled her eyes as she tried to aim the heavy revolver at the zombie's head, but she was shaking so violently that she couldn't hold the gun straight.

  Just as she was about to fire, the zombie ripped her mother's still beating heart out of her chest right in front of Hannah's eyes. They widened with fear, watching in slow motion, as the creature held up the heart and bit it as though it were an apple. Her mother writhed on the ground, blood squirting from her chest and staining the carpet red.

  "Mother..! You bastard!" she screamed as she pulled the trigger, hitting the zombie in the face and knocking off a part of its rotten jaw. Undeterred, the zombie started to advance towards her, losing interest in the now lifeless corpse. She fired three more times but the leering monstrosity was not even fazed, reaching towards Hannah with a bloody hand.<
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  Just then there was a loud crack and the zombie's head exploded, showering Hannah with bits of brain and fragments of skull as her vision started to go black. The last thing she saw was the Stranger with his still smoking double barrelled shotgun before she became overwhelmed by shock and fell to the ground, out cold in a pool of her mother's still warm blood.

  The stagnant stench of rotting corpses filled the air around her like a fog as she woke up, disoriented and confused. "Where the hell am I?" She struggled to sit up, noticing that someone had replaced her night gown and cleaned the blood off of her body. She looked to her right, seeing the strange man that risked his own life to save her. Trembling with shock, she asked the man, "Who are you? What is happening? How did I get here?"

  "The country. I carried you here. This was my father's barn," he answered simply. "My name isn't important. Why this happened isn't important. Nothing is important other than survival now. Nothing! Listen, I know what you have witnessed is traumatic, but if you don't get your act together, you'll be next. We have to find a way to get away from these zombies and link up with anyone else who is still alive."

  Torn between her roiling emotions and the struggle for survival, Hannah angrily snapped "And just what the hell do you think happened, here? Why are there flesh eating zombies everywhere? How do you think we're going to make it out of this out alive?" She struggled for breath beginning to panic and sob, body shaking and tears streaming down her cheeks.

  The Stranger walked over to her, kneeling down and placing his hands firmly on both of her shoulders, saying softly, "I know it seems like a hopeless mission, but I promise to protect you with my life. I will not let anything happen to you. Please trust me, and let's get out of here before that promise gets a lot harder to keep."

  She looked up into his dark and troubled eyes, so full of sincerity "Alright, let's get the hell out of here."

  A zombie fell to the ground, never to rise again as a 44. calibre bullet struck it right in the head and exploded out of the other side of its skull. At least twelve more of them were advancing on Hannah and the Stranger. They had barely made it a mile or so down the road before zombies began to creep out of the forest, hungry mouths open, dripping with drool and blood. Hannah fired again, striking a zombie in the neck and nearly severing its head. She stood back to back with the Stranger, who was grimly firing his shotgun, each shot quickly felling another zombie. A particularly fat zombie with gore all down its distended gut had nearly reached Hannah. She aimed her pistol straight between its eyes and fired, except instead of a loud gun shot the pistol merely clicked uselessly. She was out of ammo.

  With surprising swiftness for something of its size, the corpulent zombie rushed forward, seizing Hannah by the throat and lifting her off the ground, trying to crush her wind pipe. She tried to gasp for air but nothing came out. "This is it then," Hannah thought in terror, squeezing her eyes shut tightly. "Please let them just kill me. Don't let me be one of them!" she pleaded silently.

  There was an awful sound like a cleaver chopping meat and Hannah fell to the ground, the zombie's severed arm still wrapped around her throat. She looked up in time to see the Stranger holding a large, razor sharp machete. With one swift blow he severed the head of her assailant and it dropped to the ground like a rotting sack of potatoes. Another two zombies came at them as Hannah was still trying to pull the severed arm from her neck. In a series of swift motions the Stranger spun, using his machete to cut down the remaining attackers, blood misting the air as he calmly cut the living corpses to pieces.

  The night was quiet now. Hannah and the Stranger were in a ring of death, the corpses of zombies littering the ground. He reached out a strong hand and pulled Hannah up. "There will be more. Always more." he said, more to himself than to Hannah. "We need to keep moving, find shelter." He handed her a small 9mm pistol.

  "Its all we have left. I'm out of ammo for everything else." he said apologetically.

  "Take it, you'll need it more." replied Hannah.

  "Trust me." he said. "I've got my machete anyway." he smiled grimly. "Now lets get the hell out of here."

  It was almost sunrise when they finally found shelter in a dilapidated old garage in the middle of nowhere. The Stranger barricaded the entrance with some old oil drums, then sat down on the floor with Hannah.

  "You saved my life twice. I owe you." said Hannah, breaking the silence.

  "You don't owe me nothin' girl. I only did what was right by me." said the Stranger.

  "What is your name at least?" asked Hannah.

  "You can call me Robert." he said, much softer, and Hannah could't help but notice the way he looked at her, like she was something precious.

  "I'm Hannah." she said, and smiled for the first time since their ordeal began.

  Their reverie was interrupted by a loud bang, and then more, then a cascade as if a crowd was battering the walls. "They're here." said Robert, drawing his machete and standing. With a resounding crash the makeshift barrier was breached. Hannah's knuckles were white as they gripped the pistol. She fired into the mass of advancing undead, knocking one or two over, but the bullets were too small to have any real effect.

  Robert let out a wordless yell of rage and charged at the horde, swinging his machete like a samurai sword. No matter how many he killed or dismembered, more just took their place. "Hannah! Get out of here! I'll hold them off!"

  "Robert please! Don't!" she begged as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  He looked her in the eyes for a moment. "Goodbye Hannah." he said simply, turning to run at the mass of zombies advancing towards them.

  Hannah ran, desperately trying to find an exit. She found a door and went through, praying it led outside. It didn't. She had locked herself in a storage room with no way out. The tiny room was packed with shelves, gas canisters, nails, and oil. She searched desperately for a weapon but could find none. There was a loud bang and the door shook in its frame. "They're almost in!" she thought, worriedly. She had her pistol but it was practically useless against zombies and she only had one shot left anyway. There was another loud bang and the door crashed off its hinges. Zombies swarmed inside like flies to a corpse. Hannah pushed over the shelves and they fell, crushing several zombies and causing the room to reek of gasoline as the containers split open and poured onto the floor.

  There was only one thing left to do. "Thank god I didn't quit smoking! she said, and struck a match, hurling it into the pool of gasoline. Instantly several more zombies were immolated, but now she was seriously trapped. Through the smoke, gore and burnt piles bodies she saw a familiar face, but as she looked into its empty eyes she realized that Robert was never coming back. It crawled over the shelves, half of its body still burning and advanced towards Hannah, who had backed into the farthest corner of the room and was shaking, gripping her pistol and aiming right between zombie Robert's eyes. He dragged himself closer and she readied the shot. It would mean undeath and torment if she missed.

  Hannah placed the barrel of the pistol in her own mouth and just as the zombie Robert reached her. Blood spattered across the wall and her lifeless body fell to the floor as the whole building was consumed by fire and blood.

  “Surprise, Surprise!”

  Story #7

  By

  Jennifer Fuson

  A tearing of limbs was the only sound heard in the middle of the hospital's vacant parking lot. Grinding of teeth against bone and the scent of death filled the night air as Charlie watched the last bit of the remains of her son slide down the throat of a decrepit creature. Its eyes were glazed over like clouds over the moon, a putrid smell floated out around it creating a nauseating and overwhelming burning of her eyes.

  It alone silenced her agonizing screams as she lay trapped beneath her car. The animalistic remnant of a human didn't even seem to be touching the ground as it crouched and sniffed the air like a dog on a scent trail. With her one functioning eye Charlie watched it creep across the ground, glass crunching under its hands a
s it addled towards her like a spider. She covered her mouth with her hand, trying to stifle the urge to vomit as the creature’s smell became overwhelming even to her pain muddled mind.

  It didn't seem to notice her. The puddle of blood pooling beneath her head was beginning to thicken. The beast sniffed around her shattered window again before turning around and rising to its feet. The zombie seemed to be satiated. All that was left of her precious baby was his torn and bloodied onesie. The last thing her mind could process before all consciousness left her was headlights. Damn bright headlights.

  "Vehicle check four do you copy?"

  The four by four ambled through the accident debris of multiple cars. The hospital which had once played a part in saving lives suddenly served as a can of sardines for the zombies that began to pour from the morgue and those who were close to death. Brynn’s night vision spectacles sliced through the heavy darkness illuminating what looked to be an area for human limb recycling.