What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Zombier Read online

  It’s been ten years since we moved in here. You loved so much these old walls.

  The furniture, the tapestry, the velvet curtains.

  And I loved you.

  You were so wild, and restless. With your big rounded eyes always wandering around the room.

  Your white crumpled clothes, the way you walked with your bare feet, your messy hair, the way you screamed at nothing and clawed my back when I held you.

  I miss you so much, my Caroline.

  Still now I’m here, alone, with this obnoxious scratching sound coming from the living room wall.

  I loved you, sweet Caroline, I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry I had to bury you alive.

  But I’m sure this scratching will go away, eventually.

  Backache

  “I’ve a very bothersome backache, could you take a look?”

  “I don’t see anything strange, except for the knife.”

  The Mask

  She was running in the forest. The man with the white mask was on her tail.

  She rushed through the dark trees, her pace cracking on dry leaves and roots.

  The night was coming.

  The unknown man had been following her since the edge of the woods. She didn’t know who he was or what he wanted. Just a pale mask and a black cape. But she felt his whistle and his thirst for blood.

  In the red sky of the dusk, she spotted a small house. She reached the door and started knocking, desperately, crying.

  A man opened; he was pale and skinny, with brown hair and big rounded eyes, deep like pits.

  “Help! Help! The mask, he’s following me!”

  “Stay calm, young lady.” His voice was thin and gentle. “Come inside, I’ll make you some tea.”

  “Thank you, thank you,” she cried with grateful tears.

  “Have a seat,” said the gentle man, warming the teapot.

  She sat down, still shivering.

  A sudden sound made her gasp. “What was that?”

  “Just my old cat.”

  She stood up and went to the next room. The door was open, a bedroom.

  “There’s nothing to see there,” shouted the man.

  On a chair, rested a black cape and, above, a pale white mask.

  There was no other way out, when he closed the door.

  Smile

  “What’s that gloomy face? Here, let me fix it.”

  He took the scalpel and drew her a new smile.

  Red Tape

  When her turn came, Mary walked briskly to the door of the public office. “Hello, I would like an S17 form.”

  The gray-haired municipal employee, with thick glasses on his nose, made a snort and rummaged in one of his drawers. “Have you brought your identity card and the notary deed?”

  “Yes,” said Mary, placing a stack of papers on the counter. “And here is the clearance of my religious community.”

  The employee handed her some pink pages in duplicate. “Please fill in with your data and preferences.”

  Mary grabbed the chained pen and began to write her name, social security number, the date of that day. She looked at her watch: it was 4:15 p.m., so she wrote 5 p.m. as the planned time. She checked the various boxes on the questionnaire, then gave the papers back. Her hand was trembling a little.

  “It’s 137 dollars,” said the employee as he examined her answers. “Oh... I saw you chose the option 232. This leads to an extra charge of 46 dollars. You know, for cleaning up... later.”

  “Sure, sure,” replied Mary and promptly paid in cash.

  The clerk put a stamp on each page and handed her a copy of the form.

  “Thank you and have a nice day,” said Mary with a smile.

  Singing and tapping nervously her fingers on the steering wheel, she drove back home.

  First she opened the hot water to fill the bathtub while she undressed. Then she took a large knife from the kitchen.

  Back in the bathroom, she looked at the time: five o’clock.

  Happy for having completed all the bureaucratic assignments on schedule, with a piece of tape she hung on the door a copy of the “Suicide Application Form - S17.”

  She plunged in the hot water and cut the veins of her forearms.

  In a sea of red, she passed away with no regrets, like a good citizen.

  Monsters

  Bad Jokes

  “Look! There’s a giant locust behind you!” said the guy.

  “Ah-ah. Very funny,” replied the other guy, right before the mutant insect chopped his head off.

  Sweet Lucy

  “You’ve been like a father to me,” said Lucy with her voice cracked by tears.

  In the dim light of the room, her slender figure was approaching Steve’s desk.

  The writer stood up, the pen slipped from his fingers, his eyes wide open. “How is this possible? Is it really you?”

  Lucy, her blond hair combed into pigtails, a white and pink dress with lace and ribbons, got closer. “I trusted you.”

  Steve stared at that pretty thing with a grip to his heart; he said nothing, he was too stunned to formulate coherent words.

  Lucy, so sweet and innocent, the stuffed bunny in her left hand and the right one shyly hidden behind her back. She walked until the desk lamp lit her face, which was lined with tears, distorted by a deep agony. “I was so happy,” she went a bit out of tune on her last word, “before you introduced me to Mr. Barton from the discount store. Before you made me follow him in the back.”

  “I...” managed to say the writer. “You’re just...”

  Now she was near enough to touch him. She was tall for her age, she looked almost like a grown up, but she was only twelve.

  Steve saw her creased dress and the blood running along her legs. He stepped back and bumped into his chair, which moved with a squeal.

  “It’s you. You made him do those things to me!” she moved her right arm showing what she was hiding: a big butcher knife. With a quick gesture, she stuck it into his guts.

  “He entered in me. Like this. And this. And this.”

  And each word was a stab tearing Steve’s belly, mauling his body.

  The writer collapsed to the ground and, while a puddle of blood was spreading on the floor, he whispered, “You’re just... a character.”

  Pitch Black

  Nowadays is not easy to be a writer.

  On one side, there you are, quietly trying to make yourself a name; on the other, there are the vultures, the ones peering at you and judging your every single move.

  At the times of Dante or Shakespeare, when everything was made by hand, there was no Internet, and the pirates needed time and patience to copy something.

  Now a couple of clicks is enough et voilà, the file with your precious manuscript is already traveling around the world, available for everyone.

  But she shouldn’t have done that. She picked the wrong person to offend.

  I wrote ten years ago my trilogy, Pitch Black, and I printed it with a little publishing house, half-unknown, because nowadays not even if you’re a demon you have some chance to make yourself a name in the publishing industry.

  Obviously, I couldn’t tell my editor that I was a creature from hell. No one knows it, neither does she.

  Who’s she? A silly girl all chats and web. A wannabe writer that plays the Goth, posting on her live journal pictures with her friends, posing like cute kittens, writing ill-formed fan fictions about the idols of the moment, crazy in love with some Edward Cul-something – a sparkling vampire, oh boy.

  What did this fool do? She found my books on a second hand stall, and she thought to scan them and spread them through the net, among her “emo” I-wear-black-and-cut-myself-cuz-I’m-depressed friends, and above all, she claimed to be the author.

  As if a stupid illiterate brat would really be able to write three sublime and deep black pearls like my manuscripts are.

  Grim night, The bottom of the pit, and Apparent death are not only three horror books.
They speak of the hellish torment of my dimension; they speak of violence, obscurity, blind terror. All things that a little girl like her can’t even imagine.

  But she will find out eventually; she will be aware that the journey of the main character through the stages of pain and depravation, until he becomes a demon of a hellish dimension, is not just a fantastic tale. It’s a true story. My story.

  She won’t be so lucky; she won’t have the privilege I had, an immortal life and unimaginable powers, devoted to evil and pure violence.

  I stare at her with satisfaction, while I rub my red-hot tools.

  I chained her to a board, and she looks at me with her big startled eyes, so wide open that they seems to be bulging out of their sockets, her panting breath, tears transfiguring her face.

  I approach, showing my grin, a blade of light on a dark impenetrable face. No one can stand my sight without slipping into madness.

  I can already feel in my mouth the taste of my revenge on the one who dared to profane my holy art.

  I’m on top of her. I plunge my tools.

  And her scream gets lost in the darkness.

  Purple Grass Hill

  The purple grass should have been a clue.

  And the fact that she was walking in an open field without knowing how she ended up there. Just a skeletal tree with brown bark that stood out in a yellow and cloudy sky.

  She was barefoot; the purple grass was soft in contact with her naked skin. She was immersed in a static, unnatural silence.

  It was all so odd.

  The slight slope was a sign that she was on a hill, and the tree marked out the top. It was strange, at first she thought to be in plane.

  She turned around; behind her there was a dark wood. Not knowing which direction to take, she went toward the lonely tree.

  “Amanda...”

  Someone was whispering her name.

  She continued to go uphill. From the black bark something moved, like a shadow.

  “Amanda...”

  She shivered, while the figure became more distinct, small and black, he moved a skeletal limb, pointing his claws toward the girl in a weird sign of greeting.

  Amanda froze.

  She turned around to go back. She didn’t want to reach that place; she only wanted to go home, in the warmth of her bed.

  “Amanda...”

  * * *

  She opened her eyes wide with short breath, covered with sweat. Underneath, the reassuring softness of her bed. She looked at her room: the chest of drawers with the mirror, the closet, clothes, and stuffed animals scattered around, the window from which came in the morning light. She was home.

  She sat down rubbing her eyes. Just a stupid dream.

  She stood up, went to the bathroom, brushed her hair, got dressed for classes.

  * * *

  Cynthia was waiting for her at the main entrance of the University, red curls into the wind and her usual smile. “Hey, Amanda! What are you doing? You look terrible. What happened to you?”

  Amanda gazed at her, surprised, like they hadn’t been together the night before, like she wasn’t there too, dancing and going crazy all night long at the club. “How could you withstand it so well? I feel awful!”

  “You’re such a wreck, and you even wanted to go home in advance.”

  “Yes, I know. It’s just that...”

  Soft lights, lasers, music at full volume, the heat, shaking bodies, and that black figure near the column. Was it just a shadow, an impression? Yet she noticed him due to his low height and because he made her feel watched, spied... She felt a cold shiver down her spine.

  “Come on, we’re going to be late!” urged Cynthia walking toward the stairs.

  * * *

  Modern History class. The tedious chanting of the professor. In the background, just the sound of pens writing on notebooks. Cynthia, focused on her paper, was writing thick, wrinkling her forehead. Amanda was restless.

  A shadow came into her peripheral vision; she moved her eyes for a moment and the black figure was there, behind the board with the big sheets, where the professor was writing. She could see him because his thin legs emerged from underneath. He didn’t move, but she knew he was there.

  She sprang up. At the same time, thirty heads turned toward her.

  “Sorry, I have to go,” she mumbled embarrassed. She picked up her stuff and ran to the door. She broke outside.

  Her feet stepped on something soft. Underneath there was purple grass. And the yellow sky with the clouds, and the dark tree on top of the hill.

  She turned around, but behind her there wasn’t the class anymore, just a distant gloomy wood.

  A rustle through the leaves, and the small black figure that was coming in the open. Now he was on all fours, moving like a spider in her direction.

  Amanda started to run. After a few step, she stumbled and fell.

  * * *

  She opened her eyes.

  She was in her bed again. She sat down, rubbed her face, tidied up her hair, speaking to herself. “Am I really awake?”

  She took the mobile phone and dialed Cynthia’s number.

  “Hello?” her friend’s voice was sleepy.

  “Hey, what are you doing?”

  “What do you think I’m doing? I’m about to have breakfast and get ready for History class. Don’t you tell me you’re beaten after last night.”

  Amanda made a little smile, relieved. “No, no, I’m in. I’ll get ready, and we’ll meet at school. Okay?”

  “Okay, Okay,” said Cynthia with a muffled yawn. “I don’t understand why you needed to call me. You’re acting weird, you know?”

  “Weird... sure. See you later then.” She hung up.

  Amanda looked around as if she wanted to check that her room was all right, that there wasn’t anything strange, or anyone...

  “Damn it, I hate vivid dreams.”

  Sometimes it happened to anyone, the mind played bad tricks making you believe that you were awake when instead you were still dreaming. She shook her head as to clear her thoughts.

  She stood up staggering, yawned, got in the shower.

  The feeling of the hot water was relaxing; it made flow away that sense of restlessness.

  A dive into the closet, catching random clothes, a bite to a toast with butter and jam, then she slipped out the door.

  * * *

  The purple grass was still in front of her. She didn’t want to go out; she didn’t want to leave her house. But there was something moving in the shadow of the hallway, and it seemed to be looking for her, following her like a cockroach that flees from the light.

  In a few moments, he had got incredibly closer.

  Amanda threw her bag on him, but he dodged with a jump. The books flew out, and the figure clung on the wall, made the hallway mirror fall. She didn’t even hear the noise of broken glass.

  She didn’t stop to think, just started to run again on the purple glass, on the hill, struggling toward the top, almost without breath, trying to scream for help, but no one was there. No one could hear her.

  It’s just a dream, she told herself, feeling her legs heavier and heavier.

  It’s just a dream, she thought when he grabbed her ankle making her fall to the ground.

  She tried to struggle, rolling on the grass. It’s a nightmare, it’s just a stupid damn nightmare! And the grass become stiffer and twisted, but also drier, softer, like her bed sheets.

  Now she was feeling the mattress underneath her body, and the noisy shriek of the alarm clock, but there was something else.

  Like an oppressive weight on her chest.

  She opened her eyes, and the creature was on top of her, a black deformed face, pointy teeth and bottomless eyes.

  He put his skeletal claws around her neck and started to squeeze, choking a scream in her throat.

  Tea Time

  Angelica prepares the tea for her dolls, she’s a merry five years old in her fancy little dress.

  She does
n’t know the ugly things of the world.

  Her mom doesn’t tell her scary stories before putting her to sleep; everything is pink and happy for her, and everyone is good and smiles all the time.

  Angelica places the cups on the little table with the lace tablecloth; one for her, one for Matilda the rag doll, one for Tommy the furry bear, and one for her new friend that just came into the kitchen.

  Her new friend looks a bit shy, he doesn’t say a word; only his heavy breath resounds in the room. It’s like a pant.

  “What’s your name?” asks Angelica, but he doesn’t speak, and stare at her with his dark rounded eyes; he comes near the table.

  “You are furry like my teddy bear, I’ll call you Buddy,” says the little girl’s cheery voice. “Uhm… I’d like there were some cookies… mom? Why don’t we offer some pastry to Buddy?”

  Mom is sleeping and doesn’t answer.

  Buddy makes another few steps, lays his paws on the table, his sharp claws scratches the lace, leaving red stains on the white cloth.

  “Look at this! You get it all dirty. Mom will be really mad when she wakes up… you even stained her dress.”

  Buddy shows the grin of his long fangs, still dirty with shreds of food.

  “Here, drink your tea or it will get cold,” says Angelica. She’s sitting on her little chair and pretends to sip an invisible drink.

  She turns toward her mom, who lies on the floor, all dirty with red; she has strange slimy things coming out of her belly. And stares glassy-eyed to the ceiling. A dark puddle have spread around her.

  Angelica shrugs. Her mom will eventually clean up everything, after her nap.