Zombie Six Pack

Zombie Six Pack

© Copyright by Gary L Morton, 2013

ISBN: 9781301587131

Published at smashwords.com by Gary L. Morton

Table of Contents

* DWELLERS

* Walking Dead Man’s Blog

* Hungry Visions

* Ghoul Bait

* Digger - The Zombie Dog

* Zombie Glacier

* Bonus Tale – Cannibal Run

About This Book: Six offbeat zombie tales picked from my other story collections and one bonus longer tale.

DWELLERS

By Gary L Morton

Stars vanished in a violet explosion, causing him to toss and moan. Then a new dream emerged out of sweaty REM sleep. Eddy knew he was dreaming; he often did but could not wake himself up. This one was a lousy dream, one of those gut-wrenching repeating dreams he hated. He struggled to wake, but without success—the effort being another phase of the nightmare.

The lights were bright and everyone he admired looked on. He knew they were there only he couldn't see them—he couldn't see anything but glare. It was the sort of awareness a paranoid schizophrenic person gets—everyone was there and god he wished they weren't. They had to know he in no way deserved the smashing award he was about to receive.

Eddy had his clothes on this time, but he wished he hadn't worn such a huge pair of soiled running shoes with his new suit. If he’d shaved and taken a bath it would’ve been better too. It was so bad he could smell his body odor like a miasma around him. Naturally it was too late to run to the can; he was up and his name was ringing in his ears. Why did the guy have to shout so loud?

A grinning face showed and it wasn't Robert Robinson this time. Who in the hell is it? he thought. Or who in the hell are they? By they he meant that a sort of shape shifter from hell was presenting this year's Mars Literary Award. The face shifted rapidly and some visages were of writers that died years ago, and they looked long dead like they'd been brought up from the grave to haunt him.

Gulping visibly, Eddy began to walk to the stage. The glare didn't blind him and there was some relief in that . . . what really knocked him out was the shape shifter. It was switching through a bunch of B-movie zombie bodies that looked too real to be hallucinations. He feared insanity—maybe his mind had snapped completely. The setup sucked, lights hot enough to melt his shabby runners, and the cheap rubber soles made a horrible sucking noise as he climbed the three large varnished steps to the platform. Turning, he saw some faces grinning through the glare. All eyes were on his feet and that caused him to smile nervously as his cheeks reddened.

Blood dribbled from the corners of the shape shifter's mouth as he said a few words in a distorted monotone. Eddy picked up the words visionary and brilliant as his eyes focused on the Mars award. He'd won with his first short story. It was a science fiction gadget story he sort of borrowed from one of his pals and rewrote, and to his dismay this year's award had been redesigned to look exactly like the ugly contraption in the story. A piece of junk really. He'd forever be explaining it to others and he doubted many of them would believe it was an award and not something he'd welded together in a junkyard.

At one time Eddy had been critical of gadget stories and tales that predicted the future. Leonardo Da Vinci would always be remembered for predicting the airplane, but who would remember forty thousand science fiction writers for the gadgets they had predicted first? Only a minute ago he'd believed awards to be surrogates when it came to fiction; forget to reward yourself by writing what you really want to write and you'll forever seek awards from others. Now as an award winner his views had changed and his fears were gone. He decided to say a few words.

He looked to the audience and had to pause to wipe tears from his eyes; false tears that were an effect of the lights and not his emotions. Some people can predict the future, he said, then shouts cut him off and faces loomed up. It wasn't an audience of writers after all, but a gang of reviewers and critics. The sort of people who wouldn't let you say a small word without tearing it down. And they were already attacking his speech.

One of them was his high school English teacher, Ms. Mansion, and she mounted the stage, waving his old report card, yelling, Eddy Dash couldn't have written that story! Here are his marks! He failed high school English at Trent! He never would admit that his gay feelings and come out of the closet.

Eddy's head began to spin; he'd always hated people for thinking he was gay. Ms. Mansion lunged and snatched at the award and they began to fight over it. Pulling back he knocked the shape shifter and got free of her. She came at him again and he got her with a vicious kick to the shin, causing her to howl. He grinned, unable to stop himself—he'd always wanted to give her that kick. That one's for everyone you made me hate! he screamed. Looking to the audience he saw people in shock. Obviously they believed he was out of his mind. She made me hate everyone, really she did, he whined. And it was true; there were no writers he hated more than ones he'd studied in school. Like most English teachers, Ms. Mansion dissected everything, killing the mystery and the story, turning exciting authors into pieces of bullshit grammar.

A flash brought him back to reality. It was the shape shifter, he'd transformed to a weird version of one of the ancient TV Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. He raised a weapons arm that reminded Eddy of Judge Dredd and fired. Flaming oil shot out and hit Ms. Mansion, burning her in a poof like she was a wax witch.

Eddy faced the shape shifter and shook. Now the thing had a dark robe and a golden mask; the weapons arm still up. You wrote a story about the future? the shifter said.

I didn't write it. I stole it from Steve, Eddy said, beginning to weep. I can't write about the future. I can't write anything. It's the others who can predict the future.

A Dweller from the future will be talking to you Eddy. You have done well, the shifter said. But the others haven't been honest. He turned to face the gasping crowd. You fools! he shouted. Don't you know the future is something you will not predict? He lifted his weapons arm and sent burning oil streaming into the crowd. Horrible screaming began; blood, fire and smoke fanned up and roared in a descending wave.

Eddy shot up in bed and cradled his sweaty head in his hands. Not that guilt dream again. It had repeated about a hundred times, and had something to do with his failing creative writing. God he hated it. Damn, failing creative writing, and in Canada, where anyone who could write a paragraph passed. He'd never get over it. He shouldn't have stole that story from Steve.

His erection was staring him in the face so he covered it, wondering if he wasn't becoming just a little perverse. Was seeing people frying alive giving him a rod or was it Ms. Mansion? God help him if a Judge Dredd was giving him a rod. He hoped it was seeing people burn that turned him on.

The clock was at ten am but it looked more like night outside. He went to the window naked and glanced down, and then he jumped back. It looked like a crowd below. Deciding to get dressed he went to the closet and fished through the heap; he kept summer shorts and T-shirts in a pile so getting dressed would be easy. Eddy was lazy; he never wore long pants in the summer because they were too hard to put on. Eddy Dash—even his name seemed wrong, like it described someone exciting rather than a person considered a dreamer and mentally slow. Looking in the mirror he saw a slim young man with prominent cheekbones, a sharp nose and a mop of blond hair; he wore an earring but it didn't make him appear effeminate. At least not in his opinion. Young and handsome perhaps, but the difference was there in his eyes. They always looked strange and otherworldly like he was hooked on some powerful drug. The drug was his mind which had always been off balance, hooked on dreams.

Ten minutes more and he'd miss breakfast at the Emerald Hotel across the street. Stepping back to the window he looked down to check the crowd and found that it wasn't a crowd. The people were shadows. If you could call them that. Forms moving slowly, rolling and shifting like tumbleweeds, most of them not connected to any real objects. Flecks of light drifted hypnotically like snow flakes and he thought of winter, remembering Christmas. The shadows were his cousins carrying gifts. He saw Mary standing under the big tree in the town square. She was beautiful, flowing hair and eyes that glittered with dreams. Pain stabbed at his heart because Mary had drowned and he was alone. Even his cousins hadn't spoken to him since Uncle Jack had decided to disown him. Now he had the graveyard flowers, the sound of the river and the screech of tires from the accident that executed his parents and brother—all of it flowing past.

Not that dreaming while I'm awake shit again! Eddy thought, pounding the wall. He recalled the disadvantages. It was a condition he sometimes got. Dreaming was a condition he always had. Usually it was daydreaming when he was awake. Normal concentration was something he lacked and because of it he was out of work, collecting medical welfare. Things other people called simple tasks were too much for him; he couldn't even go fishing without cutting his finger while hooking the bait. He always got to dreaming about something else and his drifting mind bungled the task.

Depression of the suicidal sort was the result, so instead of finding success in life he graduated from high school to welfare and a tiny apartment on Brightsville's main drag. It wasn't good for the old self-image, and when it did occasionally emerge from behind the wall of dreams, he saw himself as a loser.

The hicks at the restaurant were sure he was gay and Eddy reflected on that as he went out the door. Since he was handsome and young the hicks were probably more like wishing he was . . . they would screw anybody—man, woman or thing—they just wouldn't admit to it. Being the only guy in the area without a car didn't help much when it came to getting a reputation for dating women and he knew that wouldn't change—he hadn't been in a car since the day his parents died in the crash, or out on a date since Mary died. And he wasn't gay or anything; he was a sort of loner—a guy with only one friend. Even a person with a handicap would get some kind of work in a small town, because of the buddy factor. Eddy knew that but