Doris was absolutely mortified. It was bad enough that she blew her dead husband’s brains out, but now she had to mop up all the gore he’d spattered over their polished hardwood floor.

I don’t know what that man was thinking coming back here. I can’t have a zombie in the house. What would the neighbors think?

Doris pushed her cat’s eye glasses up on the bridge of her nose and tucked a few gray hairs back into her bouffant as she tried to regain her composure. Stanley always told her to get over the fifties and try dressing like a modern woman, but she liked her flowery house dresses and patent leather flats.

She grabbed a mop and filled a bucket up with Pine-Sol and water. As she mopped, the blood turned pink and Doris was relieved it wasn’t setting in. She starred at the broken window and the tattered remnants of her sunflower curtains. Darn it Stanley, you knew they were my favorite drapes.

By the time she finished, the floor was clean but the mop was a clumpy, cruddy mess.

She sighed. Now what am I going to do? It’s not as if I can run to Sears for a new one with all those zombies out there.

***

Doris barely heard the knock at the door as she hammered new planks over the broken window. The knock came again, louder, more insistent. Finally she took the nails out of her mouth, but kept the hammer firmly in hand. She walked over to the front door cautiously.

“Who is it?”

A boy’s shrill voice cried out in the dark, “It’s Tommy from down the street, please let me in. My parents are zombies and they’re chasing me!”

Doris scratched her chin and thought about it for a minute. Is this a trick?

“Tommy, say your ABCs for me.”

“What? They’re almost here! Please let me the hell in Mrs. Jones!”

“Watch your mouth young man! Now ABCs or else…”

“A B C D E…Oh my god Mrs. Jones, please! FGHIJKLMNOP…They’re coming!”

Doris whipped the keys out of her apron and unlocked all four deadbolts. The ten year old boy scampered behind her. Just as the last lock tumbled into place, Tommy’s dead parents pounded at the door.

She brushed his tousled light brown hair out of his face and looked into his tear-filled eyes. “Are you okay sweetheart? I’m sorry I scared you, but I’m an old woman and I have to be careful.”

He buried his face in her chest and cried. She hugged him and kept watch at the door.

The pounding grew louder.

Doris gently held him at arm’s length and lifted his face so he could see her gentle smile. “I know you’re scared Tommy. I wouldn’t normally interfere with a boy and his parents, but these are dreadful circumstances. They’ll figure out they can’t get through the door and start moving around the house. I need you to help me finish boarding up a window in the kitchen, okay? Can you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“C’mon then, let’s get moving.”

***

Their mutual hammering helped drown out the pounding at the door while they finished up Stanley’s window and reinforced the other ones.

Finally, the pounding stopped.

Tommy was slumped down in a kitchen chair with his hands covering his ears. He tentatively looked up at Doris, “Do you think they’re gone?”

“Hard to say,” Doris said as she reached into the cupboard and grabbed four chocolate chip granola bars. She set them down in front of Tommy. “You should eat these. You look famished. I’ll get you some ice tea.”

Tommy tore off one of the wrappers and devoured the first bar in two bites.

“Table manners,” Doris said as she placed a glass of ice tea down in front of him.

“Sorry ma’am, they’ve been chasing me for ages,” Tommy said in a tremulous voice. “But, I’m safe now right?”

She patted his hand and glanced at her discarded .38 Special. I really ought to wipe the blood off that. “Yes dear, I think we’re safe for now.”

Doris went over to the counter and scrubbed the gun with a dry rag.

“Cool gun,” Tommy said.

“It was my husband’s,” Doris said a little sadder than she intended. “He was police officer and he taught me how to shoot. I didn’t think it was very lady like, but he insisted that I know how to defend myself. He made me practice every week.”

“I have to get some polish from the living room. Stay here. I’ll be right back,” Doris said.

Broken glass crashed in the kitchen. Tommy screamed like he was on fire. Doris ran back to the kitchen and two rotted, maggot covered arms were tugging at his shirt through the re-broken window. Tommy was writhing; trying to get free of his shirt. The bulkier arm, Tommy’s Dad’s arm, was on the right.

Doris fired and the arm flew off in an explosion of blood and gore.

Tommy fell to the ground and whimpered. The pus-covered hand drug itself across the floor by its fingers.

Doris ran over, scooped the fetid thing up and tossed it out the window. The glass shattered even more. Tommy’s father tried crawling through the window using the bone protruding through the bloody stump of his arm.

Doris took a deep breath…squinted…and aimed for his head.

BLAM!

He flew backwards to the ground.

Tommy’s mother tried to claw her way in.

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM!

Doris smiled as she peered out the window at the two motionless corpses on the ground. Not bad for an old woman.

Tommy sighed with relief. “Now what do we do?”

“There’s more wood in the basement. Take the lantern under the sink and see what you can find to fix the window,” Doris said.

Doris sighed as she looked around the kitchen, “I’ve got to find a way to clean up this mess!”

—
© 2011 Anthony Conium

Anthony Conium knows that in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, if you can’t fire a gun then you’d damn well better find someone who can. Feel free to friend Anthony on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/anthonyconium or check out his micro blog at http://anthonyconium.tumblr.com/.

 

 

“Elizabeth, darling, you look wonderful,” Margaret said, brushing at the maggots crawling through the exposed muscles of her arm.

“Well, I was a mortician’s wife before my Daniel passed for the second time.” Elizabeth paused and took a sip of ice tea from her frost-covered glass. “I know a thing or two about taking care of a dead body.”

“Could you give a girl a few tips?”

“No offense dear, but it is tad more difficult after time has gone by. Although…there may be a bit I can do.”

“Well, you should consider it a service to people like us. Perhaps you could become some sort of beautician for the non-departed.”

Elizabeth set her glass down on a lace doily. “I have other ambitions I’m afraid. I’m always trying to find the right kind of man. The kind that will give me what my miserable husband never would. Did I tell you that my quack of a psychiatrist had the audacity to tell me that the one thing I have always wanted is an abomination?”

“Oh dear,” Margaret said, covering her mouth with her rotted hand. “How did you deal with that?”

“I ate his brains of course.”

Margaret laughed. “If you help me freshen up a bit, I’ll gladly give you a tip that will help you out.”

“Do tell.”

“Follow the hearse named Desire,” Margaret said.

Elizabeth chuckled. “You’re pulling what’s left of my leg darling.”

“I’m quite serious,” Margaret said. “It’s owned by Junior Gauthier, the son of William Gauthier. He always was a capricious little devil. When his poppa died he took over the funeral home and turned it into something of a circus. He replaced all the old finery in the place with trashy modern décor and bought a custom license plate that reads ‘DESIRE’ for the hearse. The place is a gaudy mess I tell you, but for whatever reason - some strange irony of life I suppose – almost all the bodies that pass through his mortuary seem to rise again.”

“Hush now, Margaret Dubois! That sounds like rumor and gossip.”

Margaret held her hand over her heart, partially to push it back into place, and stared earnestly at her friend. “As God is my witness, I’ve seen them rise off the table myself time and time again. They’re quite fresh if you know what I mean.”

“Margaret DuBois!” Elizabeth screeched. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

“Indeed I am.”

“Well, let’s take this into the parlor shall we? I do believe I can work wonders with you that will make Junior Gauthier’s head spin the next time you visit with him.”

Both ladies giggled as they went inside and Elizabeth’s mind raced with possibilities.

***

Margaret beamed as she looked down at her new fully flesh-covered arms. “Ms. Elizabeth, you truly are a miracle worker!”

“Just keep up those epoxy injections and you’ll be fine darling,” Elizabeth said sweetly. “Now that we have you all gussied up for Mr. Gauthier, do you think you could help me with my problem?”

Margaret rubbed her arms and smiled appreciatively. “Considering how long you’ve waited for this, I’ll be glad to help dear. Visit the parlor tonight around midnight tonight. Junior will be quite busy by then I assure you.”

Elizabeth blew her a kiss. “You’re a doll! Thank you.”

Margaret grabbed her small white Gucci handbag and tucked it under her arm. “Laissez les bons temps rouler my dear,” she said as she blew her a kiss back.

After her friend left, Elizabeth went to get her supplies ready.

***

By midnight, Elizabeth was lurking outside Gauthier Mortuary carrying a little black doctor’s bag. She peered through the barred window and saw Margaret prancing around Junior Gauthier wearing nothing but a set of black lace bra and panties. Junior was quite obviously enjoying the show. Margaret slowly led him into one of the other rooms.

Elizabeth ran for the back door. Thankfully, it was unlocked just as Margaret said it would be.

She moved soundlessly from gurney to gurney, softly giggling because she felt like Goldilocks. “This one’s too small,” she chuckled as she pulled the sheet back up over the dead man’s eyes. Thankfully, Junior had a full house that night so she had a good selection.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a body bag with a pronounced bulge in it. Elizabeth nearly stumbled over her own feet trying to get across the room. She unzipped the body bag…and ah…finally found what she was looking for. He was about six feet tall, lean built and sporting a massive erection.

She ran her fingers around the red blisters circling his neck. “Looks like it is true what they say about hanged men,” she whispered gleefully.

She touched him and the man opened his eyes.

Elizabeth smiled at him. “It’s quite alright, darling. We’re going to have a little fun you and I.”

He looked confused. Elizabeth saw that his movements were still relatively normal. He hadn’t been embalmed yet.

She retrieved a syringe containing a mixture of embalming fluid and other ingredients for her secret recipe from her bag. Elizabeth grabbed the man’s scrotum and injected the mixture directly into the tip of his penis. He moaned loudly and she put her hands over his mouth. “Ssssh,” she said. “I promise you this won’t take long.”

Elizabeth mounted him and furiously bobbed up and down, biting her tongue to keep from screaming, thrashing around madly until the zombie groaned and spent himself inside her. She climbed off him and began smoothing down her dress and fixing her hair.

The man reached for her and she darted for her medical bag, retrieved another needle and injected him with a sedative. As he fell back to sleep, she zipped up the bag and crept out the backdoor.

Elizabeth felt a little churn in her stomach and smiled.

She couldn’t wait to find out what kind of beautiful creature they had created.

—

© 2011 Anthony Conium.

Anthony Conium is the pseudonym of the pseudonym of a writer who suffers from multiple personality disorder. However, all of them hope you enjoyed this story. Anthony Conium is actually a huge fan of Tennessee Williams and really hopes that Tennessee doesn’t rise out of grave and throttle him for taking a swipe at his work. Please feel free to email any one of Anthony’s personalities at anthonyconium@gmail.com.