LeftOvers Pt 2

by Jason Warden

…….“Now, what’s it gonna be Rev? I still have to make the marinade,” Alex added.

I couldn’t speak; I would be murdering someone and would be dead not only in life, but also before God if I chose. My mouth worked soundlessly, and I could feel the panic setting in. It wasn’t until Billy grabbed the handle of the girl’s cage that I knew why God had placed her father in my path.

“Him… take him.” I pointed to her father, James, and he began to wail.

“Are you sure Rev? Here try this.”

Billy put his hand inside her cage, running it up and down her soft downy skin, and then he pulled it out and shut the door. He walked to me, knowing my decision either way would destroy all hope I held. Billy pushed his hand into my face rubbing the smell and taste of her onto my skin. All I could think of was peaches, ripe, golden peaches on a summer day, and juice falling to the dry earth below my chin making little puffs of dust in the tract behind grandfather’s orchard.

“Take…him,” I half whispered, half screamed.

Billy took a step back, and I think for just a second he really understood, or something was speaking to him. I like to think so.

“Yea, okay, so we will.” Then the understanding was gone. “Get em,” he growled at one of the others.

They did. The marks of the chicken wire cage were embedded deep on his skin. The cage was roughly half the size it needed to be. He had been lying naked, no doubt trying all he could to keep his weight off the wire, and failing.

They pulled him into the building and I was pushed forward and inside by the mass of dead bodies who growled and moaned to be the first in line.

I was ushered to the front of the room where Alex and Billy stood next to a table covered in gold cloth. I sat, they sat.

“You’re in for a treat, Alex is the best around. Well he’s the only one around,“ He laughed, I didn’t. ”You get it? You get it?” He continued to laugh and I prayed silently for earthquakes, fires, plagues of frogs, and the return of my savior. Finally, his laughter stopped and a cart was wheeled out to a stage Alex had set up at the front of the room, on it, Brother James Thomas. His hands and ankles  were tied and an apple was shoved firmly into his mouth. He tried to scream around it, but it was a big Red Delicious I could only watch as a tear beaded, dropped, and landed on the apple’s shiny surface. Before I realized it I found I was salivating over the taste of his tears.

The vision broken by the sound of Alex speaking. His voice was strong, deeper and more authoritative than his young man’s face would lead one to believe.

“Reverend, would you be so kind as to lead us in prayer?”

Again, I froze, but prayer is a way of life so I pulled a stock one, I don’t remember which from my library of prayers and blessed the food as best I could. Inside, my prayer was only for death, true and final death.

Another snicker of laughter followed Alex’s patronizing “Amen,” and I watched as he stood and walked to the man, and used a large brush to apply glaze to the body. Then Alex motioned for two of the others to come up on stage, and they proceeded to lift James’s body onto a spit they had set up over a small fire. The metal bar ran between his wrists and ankles and the ropes that held both.

My soul ached as Alex adjusted the heat beneath James and wisps of greedy orange shot up and touched him. I thought of him chasing chickens as a small boy, him trying to carry buckets of feed that were bigger than he was, and the love in his father’s eyes every time they crossed his son’s path. He struggled and tried to cry out, I struggled not to. The apple, and my own fear, held us both soundless. I looked around for anything I could use to deliver myself to the Lord. Any instrument, a fork, a knife, A shattered chair leg. God could judge me; He could decide my pennance. To my despair, they had cleared the table of all such instruments, and then, it didn’t matter anymore. The smell, taste of his browning flesh reached me, and meat was all I could think of.

“Smells good don’t it?” Billy asked.

“The key is, you gotta cook em’ live, dead, and undead to seal in all the juices.”

I only nodded, smelling that and doing anything more was just too difficult. Something inside told me I should resist, but the pull was so strong. It hit me that this was all for show. None of it served any purpose other than entrenching the two of them in control. I watched as James first began to sag, then went limp as he continued to cook on the spit. A few minutes later, his eyes opened again, but they were different, darker.

“Just a few more minutes,” Alex said. “You’ll know he’s done when the timer pops.”

James stared only at me, his hate burrowing deeper and deeper. I added the feeling to the hunger and felt nothing, thought nothing, only need. Soon his eyes once again began to darken as strips of skin fell from his back, exposing the brown/pink flesh below. There was a pop and Alex was up in an instant. He turned off the fire and I saw one of his helpers scoop the steaming remains of the “timer” onto a plate and forking more from the ear of Emma’s dad.  Alex took the plate and sat it before me.

“Bon appétit.”

I looked down on the small portion of brains he’d laid in front of me. It smelled like heaven. My hands moved of their own will and I prayed for hope. I took the first bite and flavor lit up the world. I prayed for forgiveness, and shoveled in a handful of grey meat. I prayed for the rapture. When my plate was empty, I Iooked from Alex to the body and the cut strips of exposed flesh he’d laid on his plate. I prayed he would share, and he saw it on my face.

“Oh no, no, no, no, you have to save room for desert.”

I whispered, “Oh Lord, take this cup from me. Your will, not mine.”

A young girl screamed.

Leftovers pt. 1

By Jason Warden

I had found my calling; I held no doubt in my heart. God had called, I had listened and soon, very soon, I would share the word with those who were lost. It seemed the angels were singin’ in my soul. I simply could not wait to witness to the left behind and the lost.

As the door swung open, the two I had seen before at the restaurant stepped in. Alex and Billy, a couple of the smart ones, Talkers, as they call them now. Even with the joy I felt within bursting to get out, the look of them scared me unlike the look of the other, less together ones. I think it was the calm in their eyes, the sense that they already knew what to do with me.  Sure, the dead ones, the really dead ones, could have torn me apart, but at least it would have been quick. These two, they had plans, and with each step they moved into the room, my mind cowered away from images of cooked meat.

The sun beat down full from overhead. The heat that should have baked me and sent me looking for water simply wasn’t there. I felt no nothing at all, as if my entire body had fallen asleep. Only the pressure on my arms as the two pulled me to Billy’s truck gave me any reason to believe any of it was real. My feet barely touched the ground the whole way. There would be no escape.

We rode to town, all but Alex and Billy crammed in tight in the back of the garbage truck, and I thanked God for my lack of sensation. It seemed they had brought the whole town, although to my relief, Lazarus was not among the dead who were pushed up close to me. A few of them were not only rotten, but were more gone than there. Limbs were missing or attached by little more than the sleeves of their clothing and their skin had dried, was drying like apples peeled and left lying in the baking hot sun. I watched as new cracks formed around their open mouths, mouths that all held enormous teeth. I tried to tell myself it was only because their gums had wilted, receded, exposing more than could normally be seen, but it did little to help. I was frozen, my call to witness to these horrors dead in my throat.

Anyone who tells you pain ends with death is a fool or a liar. They took everything I had and left me groveling, crying in pain and torment even as the tears refused to come from my dead eyes.

Once back in town, we circled the square and pulled in front of the restaurant Alex had brought back to life. In front, cages were lined up like a Chinese market. Most were meant for rabbits or chickens, but in nearly all of them were men, women and children, the living remnants of a dead town found themselves naked and pushed cruely inside. Even in the middle of the day, with the night’s meal hours away, I was bathed in the smells of cooked meat. It seemed there were sensations I could still experience, but the more I considered it, the more I realized I was not smelling it with my nose as much as I was tasting it in my mouth. My stomach gave a tremendous groan and the next thing I knew Billy had me by the arm and was pulling me away from one of the cages.  I gasped, ashamed at my lack of control, but knowing I simply knew no better. Like a babe in the woods I was at the mercy of new needs, new feelings. To defeat them I would need all of God’s strength. I crossed myself even though I’m not Catholic. Billy and Alex laughed, a chorus of undead quickly joined them, but there was no laughter in any of their eyes, only cold hate and unsatisfied need.

Alex managed to stop laughing first and spoke over the others who quickly stopped their laughs dead in their throats.

“Okay Rev, you pick. Who will nourish our bodies tonight?”

I was shaking my head, refusing to comprehend what cage was asking me to do.

“Either that or we pick for ya,” Billy added, kicking the cage of a small girl.

She shook within it and grabbed at the chicken wire to steady herself. I looked into her blue eyes and instantly knew her. Emma Thomas, Al Thomas’s granddaughter. She was naked except for the gold cross she wore around her neck. The one I’d given her at her baptism. She was only twelve years old. I looked away from her with what felt like the last of my strength and tried not to soil my thoughts before Christ’s mark, but the smell of her flesh tempted and I found myself calling for forgiveness before the  Devil’s thoughts had even fully formed in my mind.

Al had been my neighbor back before he and Millie packed up and headed for Florida. Emma didn’t speak, but her silent cries to God flowed through my head and I prayed along with her, for strength, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil.

“So what’s it gonna be Rev? Billy asked.

I looked back down at the rows of cages. Nearly all were full and I wondered at the ones that weren’t. Between two empty cages a man stared out, his eyes already dead with shame. He saw me see him, and his face crumbled. It was Brother James Thomas, Emma’s Dad.

James had done the math, but was unable, or unwilling to offer himself in his daughters place. His father would have. Al wouldn’t have even thought about it, but as they say, the younger generation is more inclined toward selfishness, and less toward Godliness.

There was a commotion to my right and I saw one of the Dead ones had reached past Billy, his will broken by the taste most likely, and he had one hand inside the door of Emma’s cage before Billy could pull him off and drive a cheap Popular Mechanics screwdriver into his eye. The red and black handle stuck out like he had somehow fallen on it while shambling away. He staggered only a couple of steps then fell face first driving the sharpened end through the thin decayed bone of his skull.

My body felt no sensation, but my mind heaved and for just a split second, I did feel the bile crawling up my throat.

“Couldn’t let him get his hands on your choice meat now could I? You’re our newest guest, and that just wouldn’t be polite,” Billy said and kicked the broken head of the one he’d killed.

He turned to another of the dead ones and said, “Get rid of that!”

“Now, what’s it gonna be Rev? I still have to make the marinade.” Alex Added.

To Be Continued…

You can hear it in audio with similar tributes by others here -> Tia’s Memorial Podcast

First Person Positive (for Tia)

by Jason Warden

I sent you my work with uncertainty, full of nervous regret,
You sent back only encouragement and embarrassing praise.
I handed you my hopes and all my lofty dreams,
You assured me with work they were all within reach.

When the struggle was great, my goals unattained,
You led me onward with confidence and grace.
When disappointment came and clouded my thoughts,
You always said “Yes, this will be hard”.

Our time was too short, the distance too great,
But I know you are smiling because I know you had faith.
I may never know your voice, I may never see your smile,
But I know your heart and that will keep me awhile.

By Jason Warden

Tia’s bones creaked as she stood from her place on the floor. She wiped her face on the sleeve of her shirt, her hands on what was left of her jeans and walked into the hall. Where the hall ended, the family room began. There she saw the light. If running had been an option she would have. Instead, she shambled on a leg she couldn’t even feel. The leg was bent and twisted, green with infection and rot, yet it no longer hurt, nothing did and for that, if nothing else, she was grateful.
As she reached the end of the hall she found that the light, like everything else, had abandoned her. Only the pre-dawn sun lit the way ahead. Her bottom lip trembled, but she didn’t know why. For a moment, she only looked about the room, confused, angry, needing. The last was all she understood and all she had. It had kept her and comforted her all these days, weeks… months?
Back in her dark room, she could fulfill the need. Out here, she could only feel. It hurt to feel. She turned back to the dark, to her comfort, when another sound, an insistent and alarming sound, buzzed its way into her ears. It was familiar and called out to some deeper part of her. She moved further into the room, curious despite the need that called out to her from the dark.
“Phone,” she managed to croak from her dry throat.
The sound of her own voice startled her. She tried to remember the last time she heard it and couldn’t. She picked up the receiver, pushed buttons randomly, and was again surprised to hear her own voice, “Phone,” she said.
“Tia?… Hello?”
A man’s voice, a man she knew, was it panic she heard in his voice? She thought maybe it was. She’d heard it before.
“Phone.”
“Are you ok…?”
She didn’t answer. The words she needed were gone, had been gone since she awoke feeling empty and violated on her childhood bed.
“Are you ok? Please answer me.”
Tia felt her lip start to quiver again, the anger building. It wasn’t fair. She knew it was more than just the words that had been stolen. Her memories, her very life had been taken as well. The more she tried to remember, the bigger the wall in front of her mind became.
“Tia… are you there? Please,…”
‘Tia,’ she thought, ‘Am I Tia?’ Her mind raced around the word, circled it, but still she could not remember.
“I, Tia.”
“Oh my god, Tia, are you ok?”
“O…K…. Tia, O…K…”
“Are you sure? Just stay there, I’m coming and whatever you do, stay inside. I love you, baby.”
The phone went dead in her hands. She pushed it tighter against her ear, tighter, no words came. Anger, disappointment, rejection; she slammed the phone on the cabinet, splintering the plastic. She looked down to find a jagged piece of the battery cover sticking out of her hand. She pulled it out and dropped it to the carpet, waited, but the pain that should have come didn’t. It was drowned by the hurt of those words. Alien as they seemed, their power was immense. She turned away, limping back to the dark, to the comfort of forgetting. She thought maybe words had been a thing she loved, but now they were gone, and so was the voice that had taunted her with them.
She slammed the door. In the dark, she found her own power; the power to forget.

“Tia, you here?”
The voice roused her from her daze. She tried to stand, but her hateful leg collapsed under her. She landed on it and shards of broken bone shot through the rotten flesh. She crawled, dragging her bottom half to a hiding place behind the door.
She sat up, pulling the dead flesh of her leg toward and under her.
“Tia, please! It’s not safe, please come out. I told her it was over. I promise I’ll never leave you again. It will be different now.”
The thump of his shoes grew louder. She felt him, could hear his breath as he drew closer.
“Tia?”
He pushed the door wide. She heard his sharp intake of breath. Through the crack at the doors hinge, her eyes gleamed in the afternoon light from the hall. It silhouetted his form and her anger began to rise. Behind her, the darkness of the room was still nearly complete. It comforted her to feel its blackness closing around her as he stepped into the room.
Eric flipped the switch on the wall. A great, awful glow filled the room. The door slammed shut behind him. He had time to turn, to see her, but before he could comprehend what he was seeing, she had his leg in her hands pulling it toward her. He kicked once, twice, but she held, pulled, held. She looked up at him. He froze for just a second, a second too long.
Hot blood, alive and sticky splashed her mouth, her throat, her face. She bit deeper. His stunned paralysis broke. Kicking violently, he knocked her back then pulled away. His pained scream reverberated in the empty room as the muscle was torn from his leg. Bits of it hung from her teeth when she smiled. Her grey tongue shot out to catch what dripped from her lips. His pain felt good, tasted good, as did the anger and distrust in his eyes.
“Awwwhg! Tia… Stop!”
He backed, backed, and…
“Oh, God.”
Beside the bed a body lay on the floor, it was sunken, rotten and mottled with black spots. The face was the only part still completely intact. The grey hair her father had been too proud to dye was now tinged red where the skull had been cracked and opened. It fell over his face in a comic comb over. Beside his head lay the instrument she had used to put him down.
“This is what you came home to? God I’m so sorry, please, just stop.”’
He held his hands toward her palms out.
She moved, dragged forward, still smiling.
Eric picked up the lamp. The base was sticky with dried blood and gore. He backed into the wall; nowhere left to go, nowhere to run. He swung the heavy lamp toward her but missed. She paused, watched as he lifted the tool that she had used to cut, break, and kill. Then she understood, and advanced.
Tia had a moment of cosmic clarity just before her head hit the floor, a beautiful understanding of words and Eric. He had never loved a thing unless he couldn’t have it, but she would never miss what she had never had.
Eric’s leg was pulsing, screaming with fever and pain. He made it to the door, but fumbled the knob and collapsed against it before he could make it out.
Sometime later he sat with his back against the bed trying to think what he had done to deserve the hell he’d been given. Reason faded. Words eluded him.
His cell phone began to ring.

Side Effects

By Jason Warden

7.6 billion dollars. That was the judgment we were awarded in the biggest class action lawsuit the world had ever seen. When my share came in, I almost had enough for lunch, almost. What it couldn’t buy was comfort, ignorance, or a good night’s rest. What it couldn’t buy any of us was peace.
With my apartment infested, and my workplace a veritable hive of activity, the park was the only place I could even hope to eat in peace. The picnic table I always sat at was faded and peeling beneath a great old willow tree. The sandwich didn’t taste like my share of seven billion dollars, it tasted like processed meat, and fell short of homemade bread, but at least I was alone, and no one was trying to eat my soul.
The lawyers called our victory ‘historic’, “A clear line in the sand,” one said. “No longer will the people of this planet be held hostage by the almighty dollar, “said another. I thought, ‘you can say that again’, and took another bite of something that was supposed to be chicken breast.
Seven dollars and some change, that’s what each of us received, all one billion of us named in the suit. That’s how badly they screwed up their cure for the common cold. I have to admit, I don’t miss the runny nose, the sneezing, or the sinus pressure, but I think I’d trade what I have now for all three. Call me a masochist, but I’d much rather hurt and ache a few times a year than watch the dead feed on my happiness, my anger, or my pain.
IHF of course, claims it didn’t create the phenomenon anymore than Henry Ford created the drunk driver. I admit, it was a good argument, but then again as far as I know, Henry Ford didn’t equip the model- T with a keg spigot either.
We didn’t claim they created the things, only that through their negligence we now have to see those dead rotten shapes floating above us. I can’t help but duck when they dive down to taste me. It’s like when someone tells you not to blink, then pokes you in the eye. They’re not something you get used to. They could have once been men, or women, or maybe this is what they always were. It’s hard to tell.
When it first happened, I was on the train. My first thought was food poisoning. Expiration dates. Then I wondered if Jenny was trying to kill me like on those reality detective shows. Maybe she put arsenic, or cyanide, or some drug I couldn’t pronounce in my food, hoping to kill me. Maybe she was having an affair, maybe I just disgusted her. Anything made more sense than watching as the people on the train slowly began to glow, some only a little, some a lot. The children glowed with the intensity of truck stop neon. The adults varied, Mr. Business across the aisle burned bright red, his neck pinched too tight into his collar. Ms. Hippie in front of me, her shirt may have been a tie-dye disaster but her glow, her aura, was a cool blue.
About the time the glow from each of the passengers reached its peak the transparent but filthy thing came through the wall of the subway train, smiled, and took a large bite out of the man’s red-hot aura just above his right ear. Mr. Business’s eyes flashed to my shocked ones.
“What the hell are you staring at?” he asked.
I try to speak, can’t, and finally just grab the bar and turn away from the man, cinching my eyes tight together, hoping and needing to see only the black.
The same way you can’t not blink when a finger hits your eye, you can’t not look when a scream finds your ear in a confined space.
A young woman was screaming, and slapping a small boy. She wasn’t hitting the kid like he’d done something wrong, but like he had a giant spider crawling over his face . The boys color went from red, to blue, to green, a strobe light of colors as he tried to make sense of what was happening. Her color was a bright orange, the color of panic. The boy was crying, scared, bleeding from his busted lip and swollen eye. I watched as she swung full force, the boy ducked and she just grazed the top of his head. The thing, the awful black and green thing, her hand passed right through it and it laughed silently. Then a man grabbed her. She tried to get to the boy, but the man who had her wrapped tight was big, and his aura was white, the color of love I thought.
Now we all see them. They’re always mouthing things to me, to us, to everyone. There is a lot of talk about developing a drug, another ‘cure’, so we can hear them.
“What if they can tell us about life after death,” my secretary says. “What if they’ve seen God. Can you imagine a life where God is a certainty? Praise Jesus.”
“And what if they don’t? What if there’s nothing,” I say, “What if you die, and there is no hope, what will that world look like?”
Most people have taken to wearing hats to cut down on what they see above their heads. I just try to find the places they aren’t. This one is my favorite. They never come here, maybe it has something to do with the willow tree, maybe not. As far as I can tell from public records, no one has ever died here.

Undead Dentistry

By Jason Warden

I knew the one who grabbed me. He was a patient. I even helped the cops identify his remains. That was only a couple of weeks ago, back before all this started.

Todd McCoy was the boy’s name. The hit and run “accident” messed him up real bad. I hate being called down to the cop shop. When you do what I do, there’s only one reason they call, and it isn’t because I’m selling laughing gas balloons.

They’d of course, found a body and needed x-rays to identify the boy.

“Boy?” I asked.

“Yep, ‘fraid so,” The Sherriff said, “Check and see if you have any film on a Todd McCoy.”

I did, but had to ask, “If you know who he is, why do you need me?”

“Clothes match the description, and he’s the only missing we have in the county, but just gotta be sure Doc.”

Right there my stomach cramped. I’d known Todd from the time he still had his baby teeth, He was only 14, and now in a roundabout way the Sherriff was telling me he had no face, at least, not one they could make out.

He only had two teeth left, a molar and a bi-cusped, but it was still an easy identification. I’d put a filling in the molar only a year before. It was a perfect match. They hadn’t prepped the body so what was there on the table was just about what they had found in the ditch on farm road 119. Even still, the grass and gravel had dried in the blood. It looked like whatever hit him had dragged him a ways. All they could say for sure was it had been a truck, and that only because the impact was so high up on his body. His ribcage had been completely smashed into his heart. The coroner said he didn’t suffer much.

“It was probably just some drunk, probably didn’t even know he’d hit him. Must have caught the bumper and drug him. Look at these.”

The coroner pulled up the boy’s shirt to show us the scrapes on his chest.

“These are consistent with the facial lacerations.”

They didn’t look like lacerations to me; his face had been peeled off. Starting at the scalp, his skin had just been pulled back from his skull exposing his forehead to the bone. Most of his nose was completely gone, just ground off. Where his lips should have been, only an angry red smear remained. His mouth was nothing but a reddish-black maw. All of it, and I call it “It” because it wasn’t so much a boy anymore, it was just meat, meat and gravel. I could even see where some of the rocks embedded in his skin were ground away by other rocks or asphalt.

The entire sight was gruesome. I guess you get used to it. I watched, amazed, as the coroner and Sherriff stood over the boy, just shaking their heads. I was only able to control my stomach because I simply could not make the connection between this mangled flesh and Todd. But that was before, back when we couldn’t or wouldn’t believe a lot of things. I looked down at the ragged mud and grass covered nails, the yellowing skin, and all the hope I had for the world just sort of left me.

It’s sad what death does to a person. Those of us who haven’t been below ground simply turn off our imaginations to what really happens when the dirt is tamped and the flowers are left to die.

Most people think the hair and nails continue to grow after death, but it’s just the skin receeding, drying up, and exposing more of the roots. Either way, we try not to think about it. Same with the rot, which really is nothing more than the feeding of parasitic bacteria and expansion of gas. What’s left is a husk, a shell of what had been.

For better or worse things used to be simpler, easier to deny. I probably wouldn’t have believed what was happening had I not seen the man on T.V.  He was none other than Sam Belvin, an old-time radio pioneer I’d listened to back years ago with my dad. My brother had called just a week before to let me know he had passed. I was sad, but at my age, I’ve seen a lot of the relics of my childhood fade from view and die. Still, for us, it was like when we lost Jack Buck. He was just a part of our life for so long, he seemed to be a part of the family. I guess that’s silly now, given where we’ve ended up, but that’s how it felt.

It didn’t happen everywhere at once. The day I saw Sam on the news was a good three weeks before Todd found me, and that was a week after the men in town cut back on guarding the cemeteries.

I walked into the office, content with my regular post-Easter full schedule. Mona’s blood was cold when I got to her. The letter opener stuck out of her throat like a guarantee of more to come, but I couldn’t even look at it. My eyes were fixed on the bloody plaque on the floor, the one I’d gotten from the rotary club. The corners of it were broken off where someone had beaten it against her skull. My secretary’s head was cracked like an egg, pieces of bone littered the floor and the soft grey meat that should have been inside was almost completely gone.

I smelled him before saw him, it was like pickled cabbage left open to rot, but it was worse. It tickled my brain, but I could not remember where I had smelled it before. Then I saw him, Todd was standing behind the curtain, peeking around to watch me find her.

“Fuck! oh, you fuck!” I screamed at him. My rage had taken over my fear for just a second. To my surprise, he lowered his head as if in shame, but only for a second. Then he stepped from behind the curtain and blocked my path back out the door, and I just stared. The morgue had done all they could. Black, heavy stitches held the flaps of skin from falling from his brow. Where pieces could be attached to others they were. Where they couldn’t, staples joined the flaps to the muscle beneath. Even with all the staples and stitches, only the left and right parts of his forehead and cheeks were covered. Blue-grey meat replaced it everywhere else. He looked like a sick version of one of those college kids who paint their faces for football games. I thought of him yelling, “Go State!” and was horrified to feel a laugh coming. Then it hit me, the smell, I knew what it was.

I had an uncle who chewed tobacco. Even while he ate, you could see the bulge in his cheek from the plug he had hidden there. When he was dying in the nursing home, he had it on his nightstand. He didn’t know our names, and always asked us when we came what we wanted but he knew where his plug was at all times.

I remember he used to spit in mason jars. My brother and I found one of those jars in a shed while we were cleaning up his place for the auction. What was inside the jar had gone to soup. The contents had fermented and had actually pushed the lid out so that I could tell it was under pressure. Boy’s will be boys so they say, even us old ones. I showed my brother and we decided to throw it on the fire pit. It, of course, exploded and the resulting stink was almost exactly the smell coming off this thing in my office.

He moved toward me, and before I could even rise from my crouched position beside Mona, he had his hand clamped over my wrist and was pulling me up. He pulled me to the door. I grabbed at the jamb but he easily pulled me onward. I realized almost at once that he was headed toward the exam room. Thoughts of torture, instruments of pain, ran through my head. I imagined him drilling into my skull little by little with the little grinder and panic gave me strength enough to halt his progress. He stopped in the hallway and turned to me. He still had the iron grip on my wrist, but I think he realized I wasn’t just going to walk in there.

He reached in his pocket and produced a perfect set of silver series dentures, womens, if I gauged the size right, just like the ones I’d made for his mother. Then he opened the hole in his face, and mimed putting them in his empty mouth. Then he pulled me on toward the exam room, and I let him lead me.

In the exam room, he held out the teeth to me and sat in the chair. I took them from his hand, and my mouth finally found its voice.

“Todd, these won’t fit. I’ll have to make a mold.”

He seemed sad at that, and I swear, not that I’m a zombie expert or anything, but I think he was trying to cry, would have if his eyes had the ability to make tears.

I set the teeth in the tray, and walked around to the side of the chair, already he had his rotten mouth open displaying the two remaining teeth in his head. They gleamed white against the red and grey receeding gums.

“To do this right, those have to come out. Let me just get…”

I didn’t have time to finish before he reached in, took hold of the bi-cusped, and yanked the offending tooth out, revealing the black hole beneath. The stuff below it wasn’t blood, it was what was left of it, and it was as black as midnight in the woods. The second tooth came out just as easy and he held them out to me.

“Um…thank you. “

Now completely toothless, he gave me an awful smile.

I’m willing to bet 99 out of every 100 people have never seen the muscles of a person’s face work after they’ve been stripped of their entire hide, but I have, and it’s terrible. Terrible or not though, I must admit it was nice working with a patient who felt no pain or fear. So much of what makes my job hard is the fear and the pain, not the actual work.

Given what we had to start with, Todd looked pretty good when I was done. Well, his mouth did anyway. That made me happy, just like my work always had in the past. But the thing was, it made him happy too and for that alone I think I loved him a little then. He hugged me on the way out. I wasn’t expecting it, and I just froze when he grabbed me, expecting the bite that didn’t come. Instead, he patted me on the back, the way guys do when they hug, then walked out. I thought about it later and realized he was just happy that he could now live a normal death like the rest of his kind.

The Death of Art

By Jason Warden

That bastard Art Falkner across the street there, he wasn’t the type to come right out and say he hated you. He’s the type that’ll just let you go along and figure it out for your own damn self. Like we’re just supposed to sit back and take the scowling looks, the snide comments under his breath and are you telling me that white house with white shutters and a white picket fence isn’t an obvious statement? Asshole. He was and I guess, still is, one of those; “I’m not a racist” son’s-a-bitches, although every action and gesture says otherwise. Me and my girl were in the shop-n-save one day and he said, “Excuse me” as he passed us but his tone said, “Die”. Like if he had to even look at us one more second it might just put him in his grave.
I didn’t say a word though. I wanted to, but Daddy always told us, “Stay true to yourself. Don’t let them make you somethin’ you ain’t.” I never forgot that but when Art pulled up to the curb in that new white Caddy and I saw that bumper sticker; the one that said “This land is my land, this land is my land”, I just lost it.
Guess it probably wouldn’t have mattered either way, but marching over there I felt like I could stomp a mudhole in his ass the size of a tractor tire. Of course, we all know now that was the day the shit really hit the fan, but hell, it had been three weeks and all signs said the Rise as they were calling it on the news, had stopped. Still, I would’ve done it if the cocksucker hadn’t died on me. Funny thing is he didn’t change right away like I thought he would. I was kinda let down really, not at the delay, but that he died in the first place. I didn’t even touch him, just sat right there on his couch, stinkin’ up his white upholstery, and watchin’ him die. That’s how I came to meet my first “Talker”.
Those morons on the news with their “In depth reporting” don’t know the half of it. They’re so concerned with comin’ up with a catchy slogan or event title they missed the whole point. They didn’t even know what caused it. I swear, only good thing to come out of them shuttin’ the lights off was we didn’t have to listen to their babble no more.
Now, when I saw him stir, my first thought was he’d been playing possum, just hoping I’d go away. After all, I hadn’t even got started, let alone finished, when he grabbed at his chest and fell back in his chair. ‘Course, I didn’t give him no chance to prepare, didn’t even knock, just barged right in after him. He turned around, then just kinda gave me a disgusted look and grabbed at his chest before I could even say boo.
Truth is I never even saw him start to sit up, when I finally did, I thought for a second I was gonna end up on the floor with him. My old heart jumped up in my throat, couldn’t breathe there for a second, you can imagine, I’m sure. I had been just about to leave, having finally found something to cover him with. Don’t get me wrong, I hated the bastard, and I was somewhat glad he’d saved me the trouble of killin’ him, but I still knew it wouldn’t be right to leave him lyin’ there like that. When I turned with the afghan in my hand, I saw him sittin’ there, all grey eyed and sunken in somehow. I guess somthin’ had been tellin’ me to get movin’ ’cause I turned away from him to leave and I was already at the door.
“Fuckin’ nigger thief.”
Now that word usually makes me crazy, ain’t no one never said nothin’ like that to me and walked away without a black eye for their trouble, but his voice seemed detached from reality, like he’d forgot how to express emotion at all. His eyes hadn’t though, they were filled with cold, dead hate. I just looked down at my hands and dropped that tattered afghan. For a dead guy, he sure could move. By the time I got my eyes back up, he was almost on me. He had a remote in his hand, looked like he was gonna brain me with it. I just backed through the door, down the steps, keepin’ my eyes on him the whole time but never really lookin’ right at ’im. I’d heard they were terrible to look at, but for me I think it was just that I knew him.
“Stay outta my house. Stay off my lawn. You’re stinkin’ up the place, you fuckin’coon,” he said, again in that odd monotone voice that could never match the hate in the words and eyes.
You know, I don’t even think he knew he was dead. If he weren’t already, he woulda been after that, but I thought, hell, let him have his hate. It really is all he has now.
He didn’t come after me, just stood there on the porch yellin’ as I crossed the street. By the time I got home I couldn’t help but laugh a little, least-ways till I heard the gunshots and the squeal of burning tires.
“Ahh shit,” I thought. “Another drive-by.” Things were gonna get bad, real bad, and soon. I have a feeling the worst is still to come.

The Pen

By Jason Warden

We painted the trees around the pen orange. Them there oaks marked the perimeter of the enclosure. The whole lot of us worked quietly, calmly. We knew some of our own would end up in there soon enough.

We kept the bodies frozen while they waited for their harnesses and plows. Still, their stink seeped through the walls, and for weeks during the construction of the pen, we all slept outside under the stars.

We finished it early on a Tuesday. All of the women and children watched and cheered as Peterson drove that last nail and held his hand aloft in triumph.

Henry had told him to tie off while he was up on the ladder, but as any of the Peterson women will tell you, Ronny Peterson didn’t listen to sense.

It looked like a joke, a bad one. He overbalanced on the ladder and it just started falling back. Then, when he reached to grab the wall, he slipped. It happened so fast, but I felt like I was watching it in slo-mo. It was terrible, just terrible. He only fell about ten feet, but the sound his neck made when he hit, well, it sounded just like when Big Herb hit that ball in the district playoff game that year.

Peterson’s wife, a frail little woman I’d gone to school with back a coon’s age ago, came running. She’d always been long of patience, had to be to stay married to Peterson. She was a bit short on intelligence, but even she stopped short of him when he sat up with his head cocked sideways.

The dirt had already turned to mud on his sweaty face. He looked at all of us and a low moan sounded deep in his chest.

Marlon and Larry grabbed a rope, walked it up to him and just walked around him in opposite directions ’till he was tied up just as neat as you please. That’s how Peterson came to be the first one in the pen. We learned a lot from him, hell, we even named it Peterson’s Pen as a kinda tribute. It’s the least we could do.

Gotta say, we did a good job buildin’ it, as far as any of us could tell it was fool proof. It was twelve feet tall and the walls leaned in just a bit, so that even if one of the smart ones could climb, gravity would keep em from climbin’ out.

When we put Ronny in, we really didn’t know what to expect. Of course, you never know what you’re gonna get. Some of them just wander around until someone gets too close, some of them try to reason and some are just plain devious. Peterson, we judged to be one of the latter. It’s funny; in life, he was never smart enough for that, but dead, he tried every trick in the book. Called Larry an old, wore out fucknut, said “let me go you bastard,” and spit in his face. Larry took off running to wash his face and lucky for us John was there to grab his end of the rope. Then Peterson started in on Marlon.

“Hey man, let me go, c’mon, remember when I pulled Mike out of the river? You owe me one, man.”

Marlon only looked at the man, or, what used to be a man, and said, “Sorry, buddy.”

Once in the pen, Peterson just kinda flipped out. I think he probably beat on the walls of that thing for three, maybe four hours that day. Then he just screamed. I felt sorry for the guy, ‘course I did, but what were we supposed to do? I mean, he was one of them now. Talkin’ or not he was dead and dangerous. He knew the rules, hell he helped write ‘em. Once we found out we’d been cut off, we had to find some way to get our crops planted, and later harvested. We just did what we had to do to survive. Our plan was to put the other dead-uns in that day, but after all that had happened, we decided to wait for mornin’. Might as well of kept workin’.  If it hadn’t already happened, I’d say Peterson was tryin’ to raise the dead that night.

Needless to say, we got started early the next morning pulling ‘em out. When they hit the morning air you could see the steam rising off them as they thawed. We weren’t sure how long it would take ‘em to start moving around so we got ‘em in the pen as quick as we could. As it turned out, we didn’t need to worry. Most of them were still stiff as a board when dusk arrived and Peterson was still pacing around the pen shoutin’ and carryin’ on, even occasionally pounding his bloodied, broken fists against the walls.

Tell ya, hearing his cries and thumps from behind the wall growing less and less intense, t’was a bit sad really, but about dark that night, it seemed he decided for one last hurrah. Woke up the whole town I guess, ‘cept maybe a few. When I ran out to see what had happened, I saw faces peeking out of almost every doorway and little-uns at every window.

John saw me and called me over. We met in the middle of the dirt road.

“I think we ought to go see.”

I wasn’t too crazy about it, but I figured, what’s the harm?

The lights we rigged up around the pen weren’t the best but it’s what we had. We turned ‘em on, and climbed up the scaffolding to get a peek inside.  A few of them were still lying on the ground, but the ones that had thawed were shambling after Peterson. John and I looked at each other, and I think we both knew what we’d done. John had taken one step down the ladder when Peterson fell. There was one long strangled scream as they got a hold of him and I said, “Don’t bother John.”

I guess I knew from the first bite, he weren’t dead. Dead just don’t bleed that much.

We never told anyone, but I reckon a few know. You can see it in their eyes, how they look at ya, layin’ blame as if their conscious is clean as a whistle. After all, a man can’t just disappear from a pen, especially a man they all knew. Still, we don’t talk about it. Even when we tried to get old doc to serve as our coroner so nothing like this would happen again, no one even mentions Peterson. Like I said, we learned a lot from him.

By Jason Warden

If I ever told you I loved you, I lied.

If you remember ever having my arms around you, you’re confused.

I don’t remember posting love notes on the fridge, and I don’t think how lucky I was.

I wasn’t.

I never think about what it was like. It was just another day.

The sand was not warm under our feet.

I didn’t buy a ring and hide it in a sandcastle.

You never said yes, I was never happy.

I don’t remember your face, your liar’s eyes, your whore’s lips.

If I saw you, my second thought wouldn’t be to kill you.

My first wouldn’t be to get you back.

You aren’t special, you never were, you never will be.

I don’t think about our kids or what they would be like.

In my mind they aren’t Jack, or Grace.

He doesn’t love yo-yos, she doesn’t have impossible curls, they weren’t made from love.

Their imaginary faces don’t burn my eyes.

I’m going to find peace in sleep.

I’m going love myself and take care of me.

I’m not going to hurt anymore.

I want to live forever.