Issue 47 – Zombies!

Late night trade seems dead
The zombie apocalypse
Head out to the mall

By DJ Tyrer

Dawn of the Day of the Night
By Harris Coverley

zombie flesh eaters
pouring through the graveyard gates
(Hell full yet again)
creeping along city streets
begging for a brain bullet

Zombies
By Mark Hudson

There are zombies on Lake Shore drive,
driving fast to work in their cars.
They are going to their nine to fives,
and off they go to drink in bars.
How do any of them survive?
Their bosses act like they are czars.
The zombies have appropriate wives,
they all act like they’re from Mars.
they’d like to stab their bosses with knives,
but they’d end up behind bars.
In the Gold Coast when they arrive,
they wish they could be stars.
They go out at night and drink and brawl,
just another of the zombie crawls.

The Zombie’s Are Coming!
By Celine Rose Mariotti

It’s the coming of the Zombies,
Watch out for the laundry
It’s the coming of the Undead,
From the grave,
I see a head,
From the grave,
I see a hand,
Zombies across the land,
From the grave,
I see a pair of eyes,
And then I hear the cries,
Screams from the Undead,
There’s more up ahead,
Zombies are coming!
We better start running!

The Revenant
By Scott J. Couturier

Gothic rot in a garden plot –
contorted gargoyles frown down
from walls tangled in ivy’s wraith.

Bite of spade into bitter earth,
mute shoveling of disturbed dirt:
here one is buried grace would not allot.

Robber & raconteur, murderer,
faithless to friend & foe alike,
caring not for his fellow-being a jot:

valuing solely what could be stolen
or by grosser dealings got,
derisive of Hell’s embers hot.

Finally infamy came to call
via a musket’s brain-bound ball,
I only left to mourn that lethal shot –

he interred here a fortnight’s time,
in loam thick with worms to toil,
a bribed priest’s furtive blessing

insufficient to set his essence at rest,
so fraught by rage’s woeful roil.
Instead, this fine grave-bed he detests!

Rising at twilight to wander village
byway & lane, lugging often his
pinewood coffin, draped in frippery

from far finer corpses pilfered,
moldering body bloated & ruddy,
roving revenant, malign undead.

Always at night’s fall he knocks,
hoarsely calling out to proclaim,
weeping as none did at his funeral.

“Let me in, dear friend,” he moans,
“for I know you are not to blame.”
I bar door & window while he groans,

“Open up, in our Saviour’s name!”
Denied, he roams road & countryside,
supping on blood of all he can waylay.

I overturn a scant two feet
of fecund sod before his face appears,
rubicund & fat, lips smeared with rud,

& a smile of tenderest bliss,
having savoured of that fatal kiss
until ready to burst in corpulent flood.

Trembling, I raise high my spade.
A whimper before plunging down
to hack repeatedly with blunted blade,

shearing clean neck from crown,
fountain of gore gushing to moil
grave-soil to a viscous morass of mud.

His head – still grinning! – rolls to stare
accusingly, maggots in its glare,
alive with hungers no glut could allay.

Mouth opening, he speaks my name.
“Poor creature, pathetic thing of clay,
in my image I could have made you fair.”

Then his eyes shut, & shut they stay.

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Brains!
By DJ Tyrer

He always scoffed at the notion
A silly, silly stereotype
Then, one day, he died
And rose from the grave
Hungry, so hungry
Craving but a single thing
Brains… Brains…
A barely-audible groan
Brains… Brains…
Now, he’s unliving the stereotype

Originally published in Siren’s Call

Very Hungry
By Cardinal Cox

Reanimated they are
Sluggish at first
Jerkily moving stiff limbs
Then the dominant
Motivation becomes hunger
They hunt in packs
Overcoming prey purely
By weight of numbers
They feast – consuming
Day and night
While their flesh corrupts
When the limbs inevitably break
They become dormant
Entering a sedentary phase
Out of necessity
Meanwhile – something inside
Transforms – pupates
We’ve seen the husks
Empty corpses split
Along the breast bone
But not seen what hatches

Yet

Knew This Day ’d Come
By DS Davidson

His friends all mocked him
Laughed at the basement bomb-shelter
The piled-high cans, boxes of food
Gallon bottles of fresh water, medicine
And the weapons, so many weapons
Shotguns, rifles, pistols, machetes, axes, knives
Body armour, a veritable armoury
His predictions of doom – pandemics
Nuclear war, alien invasions, zombies
Especially the damn zombies – an obsession
But then, of course, it happened
Spread by a contagious bite, cannibal hunger
He knew this day ’d come
Only, dammit, never expected it’d be like this
Him – one of the first ones bitten!

zombie lovers kiss
a little of each remains
love slowly decays

By DJ Tyrer

Originally published in Scifaikuest

Issue 36 – Monster Mash

Monstrous Meetings
By Frank Coffman

“See how these children mock us, avatars
Of we who would confound their foolish play
With horror if they met US ‘neath these stars,”
The Dead Undead vampiric wight did say.
“Truly, they are quite foolish This Night to tread;
Full moon, by chance. I will choose one to slay,”
The man-wolf answered. “His joy will turn to dread
When he beholds these fangs ere break of day.”
“Yes. Must know the truth,” said the assembled man,
Reanimated by the force of lightning’s might.
The three moved forward. The children screamed and ran…
But three young souls returned not home that night.
One gave his blood, One a beast’s maw sated,
One was crushed from life. Misguided play thus fated.

Listen to Frank reading his poem on the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association “Halloween” webpage

A Strange Night at Loch Ness
By DJ Tyrer

Hallowe’en on the shores of Loch Ness
Mist creeping steadily through the Great Glen
Something else creeping, too
A chupacabra over from Mexico
Having heard that Highland Cattle
Were tastier than goats to suck
And, that haggis might be to its taste
Past the still waters it went
Avoiding villages and trick-or-treaters
Hungry for its prey
When, suddenly, the waters churned
A long eel-like neck uprose
Two great eyes looked at the chupacabra
Uncertain what this foreign thing was
Not a nuckalavee, that was for sure
Nessie, for it was she
Decided the only way to resolve her dilemma
Was to have a taste
Bent low and swallowed it whole
The chupacabra becoming dinner
Rather than diner
Though Nessie was unimpressed with the taste
And, sank back down below

The Roof Party
By K. A. Williams

Count Dracula looked around the roof at people in their different costumes – vampires, goblins, ghouls, witches, warlocks, zombies, and werewolves. He saw a familiar hairy face and maneuvered through the crowd.

“Wolfy, I’m glad that’s just a costume.”

“Good to see you Drac, my friend. How have you been?”

“I am well. Van Helsing’s descendents still think I was staked over a century ago. How are you?”

“Okay, but I’ve spent a lot of money on clothes and shoes. Now I buy them used at thrift stores. What are you doing here?”

Dracula waved his hand around. “All this free food. How can I resist such a feast? I wasn’t going to kill anyone, just a few sips here and there. I don’t want to be noticed. But you, Wolfy, will find it impossible to restrain yourself. There’s a full moon tonight.”

“I’ll be fine. The weather forecast is for thick clouds with rain after midnight. So you see – ”

Wolfy stopped talking because light was now visible from the moon which the clouds had uncovered.

His clothes and shoes tore as his shape changed. Soon his outfit was rags. His body became furry and his human face with the fake hair transformed into a wolf’s head. Jaws filled with sharp teeth opened and he howled.

“I know you can’t understand me, Wolfy,” said the Count, “but you sure know how to ruin a party.” His food was now screaming and fleeing down the stairs. He sighed. “You can’t trust the weather forecast.”

The wolfman growled and sprang at Dracula who quickly changed into a bat and flew off to hunt for another Halloween party.

Ends

A Goblin Kidnapped by a Martian
By Celine Rose Mariotti

The two goblins
Daedalus and Icarus
Hid out in the moonlit night,
The sounds of witches and wizards
Was all about,
Vampires were coming
Out of their coffins,
And a light beamed from above,
The sky lit up
A spaceship landed,
The Martians came out,
Little green men with antennas,
And green hair,
Yellow eyes,
Big flabby noses,
Daedalus in his black and yellow costume,
His magic wand in his hand,
Shook the other goblin,
Icarus who was dressed in a blue and white costume,
With broken wings
Shook at the sight of the spaceship,
They hid behind a huge stone,
But the Martians spied them,
Seized them,
Dragged them out to their spaceship,
Shot them with a laser beam,
Before they knew it,
Up, up went the spaceship,
They awoke hours later,
Unaware of their environment,
They called out,
“Where are we?
Where are the ghosts?
Where is the candy?
Where are the horror movies?”
“We’re Martians and you’re on your way to Mars!
Happy Halloween!”

When Duat is Full…
By Harris Coverley

The moon and planets and stars at last aligned and allowed my rise from darkest Duat, not four thousand years too soon—yet when I exited my sarcophagus I found a most curious thing.

To break out of the crypt was simple enough, to walk out into the sun, to feel it even through my wrap of decrepit linen.

Nobody greeted me, but that was expected.

In the far distance I saw slaves panicking and running—indeed, panic and run!

Fear me!

But as I walked down the river it became apparent that something was amiss.

The people ignored me as they scurried about blindly, some in chariots of metal and crystal, while others, stumbling about, smelling fouler even than myself I must admit, took whatever chance they could to take bites out of the others as they fell screaming to the ground.

At last I reached the largest city on the river, a magnificent polity of vertiginous towers, all aflame and crumbling, the mass alarm ongoing, the slaves in riot.

Was this all for me?

Had the terror of my awakening sent the whole realm mad?

I stood in a square and announced my presence: “I am Naarhotep the Boundless, most exalted wizard of Great Aegypt, and you will obey me!”

No response was given—the chaos continued, flesh was ripped, blood streamed, and the odd stumbler attempted to take a bite out of me—the insolence!—but I swiftly tore him in half and the others got the message.

However disappointing this was for the most powerful man in the universe, ruling the world was not as pressing an issue as was finding my love, sweetest Nauhet, her soul transmitted body to body through the centuries, her innate beauty always rising to her surface.

Across a burning realm I searched for her, incanting spells, tossing away these mindless dregs, until, across the sea, I found my dearest Nauhet reincarnated near the half-buried ruins of Troy—an insensible, staggering cadaver like the rest!

But…no matter!

With her chained at my side I can take her occasional gnawing on my dried flesh, and I will rule this earth where the dead now walk the way they do in Duat…the ma’at ruptured, the pharaohs of all nations vanquished, and I will take my chance, the moon and planets and stars permitting…

The End