What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Zombier Read online

  What Doesn’t Kill You

  Makes You Zombier

  by

  Allison Wade

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 Allison Wade

  http://alliewader.blogspot.it/

  Twitter: @AllieWadeR

  Table of Contents

  Preface

  Zombie

  The Unsleeping Beauty

  Petals in the Wind

  Zombie Wake Up

  Falling Down to Revelation

  Mushroom Apocalypse

  Zombie Birthday

  Creeping

  Folklore

  Merry Christmas

  The Countess’ Collection

  Blue Ribbon, Pink Ribbon

  The Chewer

  The Amulet

  The Show Must Go On

  Island Folk

  Technology

  Reality

  Binary Code

  Patience

  Pixies

  Internet Times

  The Game

  Counting

  Violence

  Hide and Seek

  I Spit on Your Grave

  Scratching

  Backache

  The Mask

  Smile

  Red Tape

  Monsters

  Bad Jokes

  Sweet Lucy

  Pitch Black

  Purple Grass Hill

  Tea Time

  The Last Room

  A Sweet Girl

  Preface

  Hello there, gentle reader.

  I’m Allison Wade and I’m kind of crazy. No, I mean, really insane. But don’t worry, I’m not dangerous. Yet.

  Anyway, the fact is that I like stories, especially horror stories, and sometimes I like to make them up myself. So it happened to me to collect a certain number of said stories and I thought to gather them in this little eBook.

  Maybe you should know that English is not my native language, so it may happen to find some sentences that will sound a bit funny or terribly wrong. I apologize for that. But just let me know and I’ll fix everything.

  You can visit my blog or tweet me anytime (see links in the previous page), but please be polite, I’m a very sensitive lady. Plus I have a chainsaw. Just saying.

  So here are my stories, in case you want to be sure that I am actually insane.

  Enjoy yourself. Not in a dirty way, I mean. You know.

  See you around.

  Allie

  Zombie

  The Unsleeping Beauty

  After having traveled a long road, and crossed the forest of brambles, and pierced the heart of the dragon, and reached the most faraway room of the highest tower, the prince found an empty bed.

  He removed his helm and threw it to the ground in frustration. Was he too late?

  “Finally,” hissed a voice behind him, answering to his thoughts.

  Something clung to his back, before he could notice and react. Cold breath and stench of putrefaction.

  “I was so hungry,” said the princess, sinking her teeth in his neck.

  Petals in the Wind

  I loved my gerberas.

  I had the most luxuriant garden of the entire neighborhood. Before the world ended.

  Before they came.

  I peek from a slit of the barred window and try to look outside. I tighten my sweaty hands on the rifle.

  They’re a herd of stupid dead creatures. They emit guttural sounds; they move difficultly in their torn clothes, covered with clotted blood, the shredded flesh, and the white empty eyes. Dead, but not dead.

  They’ve smashed the white fence that encloses my land and they’ve come into the garden, they’ve violated the flowerbeds that I grew with such a care through the years. They wander dull, looking for flesh to chew, tear, eat. They trample on everything, dragging their feet; they destroy the lawn; they kill my precious flowers. All my life.

  Just a little flowerbed remains untouched, in a protected corner. A little tender flowerbed of red and yellow gerberas with soft petals that swing gently in the wind.

  I look at them ravished, while a tear wets my cheek.

  I take a deep breath, chambering a bullet. I am ready to go out.

  I will protect until the last flower, even if I had to exterminate every undead, one by one.

  I open the door and shout my scream of war.

  I’ll come and get you, motherfuckers.

  Zombie Wake Up

  Honestly, I don’t know how to start writing down this story, but I’ll give it a try.

  My name is Michael. I’m twenty-three and I study political science at college. I live with my grandmother in a provincial town, in one of those old country houses with the court and the vegetable garden and the chickens... A lot like Old McDonald, except there’s only me and grandma. No, not the usual tear-jerker story about parents lost at sea – simply, grandma’s town is near the campus, so I moved in with her just for convenience. There – that’s the situation, mostly, but maybe I should talk in the past tense. I’m messing up already. Sorry. It’s just that lately I’ve been feeling a little confused...

  So, let’s start from the beginning. It was May 22nd.

  No, actually the night before. Yes, it was May 21st, 2011, the famous day of the prophecies. A day that, according to some pretend expert interpreters of the Bible, should have signaled the beginning of the Apocalypse: the dead rising from their graves, the coming of the Antichrist, the beast from the sea, the beast from the earth, and all their merry friends.

  Of course, like all the mentally healthy people thought, nothing happened that day. The world went on like always. Mostly.

  The fact is that it was Saturday night and I should have gone out because Sarah, the wonderful and gorgeous Sarah with hair like fire and sparkling eyes – and epic tits – finally accepted to go on a date with me. OK, the deal was that I gave her the notes of Professor Klein and helped her to prepare for the test, but what the hell? At least it would be a crazy Saturday night... or so I thought.

  Raging fever, dry throat, abnormal palpitations, nausea and a range of other symptoms that even science could not identify struck suddenly. All I could do was go to bed and agonize in silence.

  And at eight p.m. I fell into a profound coma-like sleep, from which I awoke at eleven a.m. the next morning.

  When I woke up I felt incredibly rested, fresh like a rose, almost reborn. Mostly.

  I came across my grandma in the hallway and she looked at me like she saw a ghost: “Michael, you’re so pale. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine, grandma. Never felt better.”

  “I’m going to feed the chicken then. Now it’s late for breakfast; wait for lunch at least.”

  What a lovely woman, and still so alert at eighty. “Sure, grandma, I’ll wait for lunch.” But actually I had some pangs.

  I went to the bathroom and I looked into the mirror. Crap, grandma was right. As white as a sheet and with dark shadows under my eyes. Maybe I wasn’t so well.

  I touched my forehead: cold. Palpitations: nothing.

  Nothing?

  Yes, nothing. No more pulse. I put my fingers on my wrist, on my neck, a hand on my chest. My heart wasn’t pounding anymore.

  It was then that I recalled all the prophecies and the story of the dead rising from the grave... that meant I was dead the night before. And now?

  What had I become?

  I could see myself in the mirror.
The daylight didn’t bother me, I had no protruding canines... Ok, I wasn’t a vampire. But what was that hunger that grew inside of me?

  I tried to make some experiments: I pricked my finger with a pin and I didn’t feel any pain, I cut myself with a Swiss knife and still nothing; the blood poured from the wound, but it was dark and dense like it was already starting to coagulate. I welcomed the news with a mix of concern and anguish, but also with some kind of detachment, almost like a peace of the senses... Still the hunger remained.

  At some point, the scent of browning onions reached my nostrils. My sense of smell seemed to have become more sensitive.

  “Michael, would you like some carbonara?” grandma called for me.

  Smell of raw bacon. Hunger. “Yes grandma, I’m coming!”

  I went downstairs. Grandma was at the stove, cooking the cubes of bacon. Meat. Smell of meat. Cooked meats. A smell even more inviting – flesh, living flesh. I approached. Tender flesh, throbbing blood.

  Grandma’s neck completely exposed. She was so alert, my grandma. And lively.

  I came behind without her even noticing. The hunger was too much – the urge, uncontrollable. With a snap, my teeth closed on her neck. The jugular: bitten, torn out, warm, juicy, dense blood, splatters. Flesh. Living flesh. Tasty bites. More.

  Before I could realize what I was doing, I already had picked clean the side of her neck and part of her shoulder. Poor grandma wasn’t even able to scream.

  I dropped her and she fell to the floor, motionless.

  Holy crap. I killed grandma.

  I wiped my mouth with my sleeve. The kitchen was a slaughterhouse, literally. Splatters of blood laid everywhere and the bacon was already burned.

  I had to clean up everything. I had to fix that mess.

  And grandma? Where would I put grandma?

  While I was wandering around in panic and looking for the sponges, I realized. I was a fucking zombie. But shouldn’t the zombies be... zombies indeed? Unconscious idiots with limited mental faculties only able to drag their feet and eat and nothing else? No pain, no guilt.

  But no, I was fucking awake!

  I grabbed grandma’s feet and dragged her to the living room, leaving her on the floor, between the sofa and the tea table. Then I came back to the kitchen and started to clean up.

  You have no idea how stinky it is to wipe out the stains of blood from the furniture...

  And in the meantime the hunger was back, and growing, and growling. I swallowed all the roll of bacon, but it didn’t satisfy me – stupid dead meat. My stomach was craving for fresher meat – alive, throbbing blood.

  But where would I find something alive here around? I couldn’t start to assault the neighbors, of course! And then the idea came to me: chickens.

  Ok, it was a humble meal, but better than nothing.

  With haste I entered the hen house. The poor beasts, hearing me coming, freaked out with fear, starting to run and jump around in a flit of feathers and cackles.

  I grabbed one of them and bit right into its breast – good juicy breast. I spat white and red feathers.

  When I was about to take a second bite on the bare flesh, a buzz reached my ears. The doorbell? I was able to hear it even from that distance. Not just my smell, but also my hearing seemed to be more developed than before.

  I would have ignored it if I hadn’t heard that voice. “Michael, are you there?”

  Sarah. The red-haired beautiful epic-tits Sarah. My forbidden dream.

  I was a wide-awake zombie, but maybe not as awake as I thought, because I immediately went to open the door. Right after cleaning my mouth from the blood and the feathers and leaving the stunned chicken in the garden.

  My new status forced me to follow the more basic orders – door bell rings: open the door.

  “Michael! Jeez, what a face. Are you all right?”

  Sarah’s smell stunned me for a moment. I felt the hunger coming back to roar – only an effort of will kept me from jumping onto her.

  “Yes, sorry. I wasn’t very well.” I could not eat Sarah. I shouldn’t even think about it.

  “I see! You look like a walking corpse.”

  “Well, actually...”

  “Anyway, listen. Do you mind if I come in? You know, the notes...”

  “Sure, sure, come in. I’ll bring them right away...” So typical; she only thought of the notes. If it wasn’t for them, I’d still be there eating up my chickens. And once the chickens were gone...?

  Now, a little note about my house. Not that I’m much into architecture and interior design, but with grandma half eaten in the living room... The outer door opens onto a hallway; on one side is the living room – closed door. On the other, the kitchen – just polished. I led her into the kitchen while I went upstairs to take the notes.

  Random chat on the stairs.

  “Have you already had lunch? Sorry I came at this time...”

  “Oh, yes. No, I mean. Not yet. I was just about to...”

  “I’m sorry to intrude, but weren’t you living with your grandma?”

  “Oh, yes. No, I mean. She’s out feeding the chickens...”

  “And she leaves them free in the garden?”

  “Uh...?”

  Note on the house number two: the kitchen has a second door that opens onto the court. A door that I left wide open.

  A scream.

  I went down headlong – I wonder what would happen if I break my neck... I reached the kitchen and the chickens were all there, flocked together on the door, mangy and covered with blood, with dull eyes – the ones that still had eyes. I was just gone for two minutes!

  In my mind I tried to reconstruct what happened: I bit a chicken, I infected it, and it became zombie and attacked another chicken, this a third one and they happily slaughtered one another, entering the wonderful world of the undead.

  And now they were there, hungry for living flash and trying to peck at my guest’s calves. Some of them even reached the table and made inhuman cries – they’re chickens you would say – but like a more guttural cackle, something that gave the goose bumps even to an already-zombified zombie.

  I grabbed the broom and started to deliver blows everywhere while Sarah was covering behind me, her back to the hallway – keep that in mind. I was hitting chickens like crazy, starting a new sport halfway between baseball and hockey.

  Somehow I managed to chase them all outside and close the door. A few bodies remained on the marble tiles, but with their heads crushed, unable to rise again, with blood and feather scattered – still life with chicken.

  We sighed with relief. At least until Sarah started screaming.

  From the hallway – and in the meantime my brain arrived at the conclusion: I’m contagious – the newly undead grandma stood up with half her neck and the ancient flower pattern dress stained with blood like at a slaughterhouse, and grabbed the still-alive Sarah, trying to eat her up.

  While I was thinking that maybe grandma wasn’t as awake and conscious as me, I was already hitting her head with the broom and all my strength – remarkable, I noticed – with the only result of breaking the wooden panhandle in half, leaving grandma happy and free to sink her teeth into Sarah’s shoulder. Poor sweet Sarah – sweet, she must be delicious...

  “Stop, grandma! It’s my future wife that you’re eating!” And in a moment of rage I shoved the end of the panhandle between her jaws until I pierced her brains. She really rolled her eyes and then dropped down dead. She didn’t move anymore; poor grandma.

  Sarah stared at me with wide open eyes, reaching with her hand for the wound that was unstoppably splashing blood. She bent on her knees, frightened, gasping, and unable to make any sound. Then her eyes, too, rolled back and she fell to the ground.

  I dragged her into the living room and then I put her comfortably onto the couch.

  Her heart stopped a while ago.

  Now I’m waiting for her to wake up.

  I wonder if there are other zombies in town. If no
t, maybe this time I had the good chance of finding a girlfriend.

  As for the hunger, we’ll think about it later.

  Falling Down to Revelation

  And in those days men

  will seek death

  and will not find it;

  they will long to die,

  and death flees from them.

  (Revelation, 9:6)

  May 20th, 2011 – 7:00 p.m.

  When Charles came back home, he was sore.

  It had been one of the worst days he ever had. At the machine shop where he worked, there had been an accident, and one of the workers had been crushed by an SUV in reparation because of the failing of the scaffold.

  The big vehicle had smashed his skull, and the unfortunate one had died instantly.

  And then all the stuff: ambulance, police, blood.

  And all those questions, because, of course, it was Charles that had handled the scaffold. It was him that should have controlled everything was functional. It was him that yadda yadda.

  He flung the keys in the ashtray of the entrance, and they bounced out ending onto Aunt Adelaide’s antique wooden piece of furniture. “Be careful not to scratch Aunt Adelaide’s dresser!” he repeated to himself with a falsetto voice. “Fuck to Aunt Adelaide,” he muttered with rage.

  “Charles? Are you home?” the squeaky voice of the old woman came from the first floor. She was probably watching her usual soap opera instead of coming down to make dinner. Damned old woman.

  “Yeah, I’m home, Mother,” he snarled.

  The old woman leaned on the landing, gray and greasy hair, her flabby flesh wrapped in an awful patterned dress. “Did you stop by the drugstore?”

  Charles sighed tapping his hands on his thighs. “No, Mom, I forgot about the drugs. It’s been an awful day…”

  “You know I need the callus preparation!” squeaked the old woman.