Often her love would stop in the early morning by the gate and just look into the grounds, normally for only a minute or so, but sometimes more. When her beloved did this, she would sneak as close as she dared, a few times almost seen, but she always hid away in time. When her sweetheart turned and walked over to the cake shop, she would sit there wishing she had let herself been seen. But she knew the truth deep down, her cake lady would be repulsed by her and blame her sadness upon her.

One cold winter morning when her love had stood there at the gates looking in, she swore they had met eyes. She had gazed into her cake lady’s eyes, and they had gazed back into hers. The moment felt like it lasted forever, and in that time they learned everything they needed to know. She saw how her decaying flesh did not matter to her beloved, that the love her cake lady felt was beyond the putrid skin and open wounds. There was forgiveness for killing and feasting upon an only child, a daughter who had run away after an argument with her mother, no time now to say sorry. None of this mattered, for the cake lady understood and blessed the monster that she was. Suddenly, her beloved turned and wandered slowly over to the cake shop as if nothing had happened. Why? She asked herself. Why had she left so suddenly? Yes! That was it, she had to follow, prove her love by leaving her home, her safe place. She ran as best she could, stumbling, arms outstretched, as she tried to scream “I’m coming”. Her throat racked with pain as decayed vocal cords vibrated. She finally made it to the gates of the graveyard and stopped.

She hesitated, the street empty this early in the morning. With a cry she threw herself past the iron gates and out onto the road. She willed her limbs to carry her, steadily she got ever closer to the little cake shop. Finally at the door, she watched her love walk through the beaded curtains into the kitchen. She continued inside and around the counter, following her love with a lifted heart, a sense of relief that she need no longer hide in the shadows. She reached the beaded curtains and looked through – she could see her. She was facing away from her as she arranged her tools on the desk, ready to begin decorating the large cake on the table. The sound of moving through the curtain caused her beloved to look around into the doorway

Her cake lady screamed. It was a moment of joy for she knew it was a scream of happiness. Her mouth wide not in terror, but of rapture that finally they could be together. She watched as her love steadied herself on the table, wanting her to join her, to love her, to kiss her, to seduce her. Her sweetheart had raised her arms in the air, open to receive her dead lover. She moved from the doorway, the curtain beads catching in the exposed bone of her shoulders, ripping small pieces of rotten flesh and muscle away. Throwing herself towards a loving embrace, trying to utter the words “I love you”, she saw the glint of metal in the hands of her lover.

The knife swung down in a forceful arc, cutting through the flesh and muscle like it was icing, deep into her neck. It smashed through the weakened neck joints and erupted out the other side like it had cut a rotten apple. Her body collapsed instantly, her head fell to the floor and rolled a few feet before coming to a stop. She could see her body, her legs making a thumping sound as they twitched. Her love stood over her, the knife now falling to the floor as she brought her hands to her face, crying and screaming. A tear began to form in the eye of the severed zombie head.

Part 1 | Part 2

Authors Note:
This short was a result of working through a book of how to write short stories. Like at school, you read the book then you do the homework. This particular brief was simply ‘Begin with ‘Once there was…’ and complete your story in four sentences’ so I did begin as it asked and I completed in four sentences. I did not take it seriously, I used to bring out my juvenile side and it was the ludicrous idea of an infatuated lesbian zombie. But the following brief was to make a thousand word story. As I wrote this piece of pulp it started to grow a serious edge, dealing with the death of a child and the dangers of the human mind when obsessed. So here are  those four sentences as some kind of DVD extra.

1. Once there was a girl zombie who was in love with the lady who sold cakes in town.
2. She tried to tell the lady how she felt about her, but as her vocal cords have almost rotted away only groans came from her mouth.
3. The cake lady thought that the zombie girl was going to eat her brains, so pulled out the chainsaw that she kept under the counter and chopped the zombie girl’s head off.
4. As the zombie girl’s head rolled across the floor and came to a stop, a tear fell down her decomposing cheek.

His scream was muffled as an abrasive hand clasped across his mouth, toxic hairs like needles dug into his skin and lips, irritating, piercing flesh and gums. Pin pricks in his flesh let blood flow into the bath water as the pressure of the hand increased. He involuntarily inhaled, breathing hundreds of tiny irritant hairs into his throat, nose and lungs. His internal organs reacted in ferocious defence against the foreign elements that had entered their domain. The increasing pain began to overwhelm him, his breaths became panicked as his body tried to gag on his own bile, mucus and blood. The face of the monster moved closer to Darren’s own face, which still struggled with its fight against the paralysis that sat in his muscles like black glutinous tar beneath his skin. Darren rasped in desperation, his eyes staring at the looming face that drew closer and closer to him. Eye sockets that had been grown over by the dishevelled skin of the demon seemed to peer deep in Darren’s eyes. Whilst it had no eyes to see, Darren could feel the penetrating presence burrow deep into his own eyes and ripping his soul in an organised but savage search for his past, as random events of his life rose and fell in his mind. Fetid breath exhaled from the monster’s repulsive mouth. The cavity was long and drawn out vertically, the bottom of the rough lips flowing out into separate limbs each with a single curved claw glistening as they moved around the cavity, cleaning and preparing. The reminiscence of his past increased in momentum. Unable to cope with the bedlam, his mind began to adulterate the memories and the vision that towered before him. The monster no longer stood over him, his mother was holding him down, her mouth opening in a sickening movement and clawed limbs ripped out tearing her face into a deformed manic grin. Blood fell like a waterfall from the coarse wounds, pouring over Darren’s chest and spilling into the already pink water, turning it a deep red. Black congealed lumps fell from his mothers face, each linked by umbilical-like cords. The lumps that hit his bare chest exploded, releasing dark clotted fluids that burned into his flesh. Skin fell away from his ribcage, sliding into the bathwater. Muscle followed and bone began to dissolve, the residue dripping onto his lungs and heart. Darren fought for breath as his lungs deflated and dissolved into the flesh soup bathwater. Finally this butchered vision of his mother pushed him in, down into the vile substance and a final resolve.

Darren looked at the tinfoil that his friend offered him along with the make-shift pipe to inhale the smoke with. He had never tried heroin before and was unsure of it now. Part of him wanted to find out the hit, another part told him where it would lead. As he stared at the tinfoil, he caught a reflection in part of the foil of a dark figure in a brimmed hat. He turned around only to see nothing there, breathing heavily with paranoia of potential actions.

“You want it or what?” said a voice.

The End

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

From somewhere inside she resisted, using every ounce of will left in her fragile essence to force her vision away from the eyes of the children, those who no longer existed for themselves, willing slaves of the source of her terror, her ‘it’. A wave of fear flowed over her; her body reacted, wanting to get away. She found herself being thrown forward by her own muscles, commanded from somewhere beneath her terror. Clinging to the fence she dragged herself along until she fell again, the wire support moving away from her as a gate swung open from her weight. She looked up, her eyes trying to focus on the mass of swirling colour upon the brickwork and that is when she saw it.

Shapes formed in front on her, rectangular and a dull green, they wavered until they became one. A light flickered from it, stark white and almost blinding as it became constant, forming a square in the rectangle. It called to her, a desperate comfort and respite from her horrors. Then something blocked the saving light allowing her eyes to settle and that was when she realised it was door. A door into wall, an escape from all those who looked on. Their stares hitting hard into her mind from behind and maybe even escape ‘it’.

She looked further into the square window to see what was now silhouetted by the light. As she crawled closer the darkness faded and revealed a set of eyes peering through the reinforced glass. She jerked back, as she feared that them and ‘it’ were also behind the door, but then the eyes blinked and she realised that behind those eyes was life, someone else who was like her. It was enough. She got up off bruised knees and ran towards the door. She slammed against it, hoping for it to fall open and the room inside to catch her, shutting the courtyard, the other dead children and ‘it’ outside and away from her. Her shoulder ached as it slammed into the surface that did not move, her fists hitting the blistered paint upon the solid wooden door. She wrenched at the handle, blood causing her hand to slip – even when she did get grip it was with no effect, as the door was locked.

She screamed for help at the figure behind the smeared dusty glass. She saw that it was a young boy, maybe eight or nine years old. His face showed panic, his hands gripping his t-shirt with a desperateness only innocence could bring. She could see him looking at her helplessly, his eyes absorbing the terror from her own eyes, from ‘it’. Her soul shattered and she was lost.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

The monolithic walls loomed over the large courtyard. Weathered graffiti spread across the crumbling brickwork telling its story of despair. Sprayed eyes stared unblinking across the concrete, their gaze reflecting the lifelessness of the children’s own eyes; those who stood entombed within the four walls. Silent screams emanated from the young bodies, filling the acrid air like an invisible mire that drowned those who are drawn to its haunting ethereal mists or fell into its deathly caresses when everyone else pushed them away.

The girl tried to run, one leg stumbling in front of the other, her own exhaustion tripping her up whilst her mind tried to concentrate on escape, getting away from them and ‘it’. The dry, thick air stifled her breathing, her head was pounding and exhaustion ravaged her limbs. She could not see straight any more, blurred repetitions of the world around her, fading like ghosts. As she turned her head looking from an escape, she could only see more and more wire fencing blocking her path as if she were a prison inmate.

The colours blurred and edges became lost to her. She fell against the rust coloured wire fence, its lattice weaving digging into her face. Dried encrusted dust separated from the rusting metal, billowing into her mouth and removing what little moisture remained as she choked, bile rising from her empty stomach. She clawed with her fingers at the fence, trying to pull herself up with no avail as her legs gave in again and again. As she fell to the floor, her tired limbs finally giving up, she turned her back against the fence, gouging flesh on broken wire. The clay-like dust mixed with the red blood added further agony upon her senses, layering on top of her exhaustion and terror and almost bringing a torrid sense of peace amidst her panic ridden mind.

She gazed randomly upon all the children, her eyes tearing from one child to the next. They stood like statues, all facing her, all motionless; all dead in their souls. Their eyes bore into her and penetrated her fractured soul, threatening to shatter it like a mirror; breaking her. Unspoken voices tell her to give herself to ‘it’ and let go of life, for she would be all the sweeter to feast upon.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4