The Undead That Saved Christmas Vol. 2 (2 page)

He began gathering his gear after making a quick mental list. His gun was of no use; two weeks ago, he’d run out of ammunition taking out what was left of the high school cheerleading squad. Hefting his hatchet, he shrugged on his parka and slid the little ax into his belt. He stuffed a cloth grocery bag into one of his coat pockets and pulled on his winter gloves. Ed opted not to don the coat’s fur-trimmed hood hoping that he’d hear danger in time to react. Before heading into the storm, he refilled the two five-gallon buckets with snow. When Betty came out of the closet, she’d have fresh water to drink. Maybe she’d fire up some Sterno and make a cup of coffee for him when he returned.

The quiet world lay before him. An occasional swish of packed snow crashed from a tree branch. Otherwise, the scene was silent. Ed took the sharpened shovel leaning on the porch rail and stepped into the fresh powder. The snow under his boot crunched invading the winter hush. Ed stopped and listened. No shuffling footsteps approached, no incessant moans filled the air. Ed took another step and repeated the process. After five more wary steps, he plodded toward the road without hesitation.

Massey’s, the local country store, was a fifteen-minute walk from Ed and Betty’s front door on a sunny day. With the snow, the walk might take a few extra minutes. If the dead caught wind of him, it might take less. But Ed had a theory. He believed in the temperature and its ability to freeze flesh solid. He didn’t think the dead could walk in this weather. From the lack of fresh footprints, he guessed he was right.

The store’s interior was dark, but that was no surprise. The whole town had lost power a week ago. Peering through the windows, he saw the shelves stocked with more items than he’d need. The mom and pop store wasn’t ransacked like the convenience stores he’d seen on the city news. As he pushed open the door, a little bell rang above his head and echoed through the stillness.

“Hello?” Ed half whispered. “Anybody home?”

He held the shovel in front of him and spun around in a tight half circle. Something fell in the back room. Ed froze. The store remained quiet. He took a step toward a snack rack and retrieved the grocery bag from his coat pocket. Snapping the bag open, he began to fill it with beef-jerky and candy bars.

The sound of a sliding foot announced an unwanted visitor. Ed’s muscles tightened as he lowered the sack to the floor and raised the shovel. A form approached. Mr. Jones, the store’s proprietor, shuffled into the dim light that fell through the window. The store’s ambient temperature wasn’t as cold as the outside air, so the dead inside were still mobile.

Ten feet away from Ed, the dead man moaned. Ed took a step forward and swung the shovel with every ounce of his strength. The corpse’s skull collapsed; its body dropped to the floor.

Ed reached for the handles of the bag and dragged it to another shelf. An endcap of Christmas supplies caught his eye. As he crammed a wad of glittery tinsel between a box of Twinkies and a can of peas, a cracker rack crashed to the floor behind him. Ed looked up in time to see two hands reach from the wreckage. The body rolled trying to right itself but slid on loose Lance packages instead.

Ed rushed the struggling figure and lifted the blade of his shovel. Mrs. Jones grunted when she caught a glimpse of Ed through her milky eyes before he thrust the tip of the spade down severing the deceased woman’s neck. Ed scooped up the still snapping head and tossed it into a corner before retrieving his plunder.

By the time he stepped back into the winter wonderland, the bag bulged with goodies. He was sure Betty would be surprised.

The sky darkened as he made his way through his disappearing footprints. When he’d hiked halfway home, he saw a little, fat evergreen tree. The tiny trunk snapped after a few blows from his hatchet. Juggling the bag, the tree, and the shovel, Ed thought about whistling a Christmas song but decided against pressing his luck any further.

“Honey, I’m home,” Ed called, dragging his haul into the house and shaking the snow out of his hair.

The closet door yawned. Betty poked her head out of a pile of sweaters she’d pulled down from a shelf. Her eyes bulged wild with terror. When she saw Ed’s face, she hurled herself from the confining space and flew into his overburdened arms.

“I thought you’d never come back,” she said, blanketing his face with quick kisses and ignoring his merchandise. “I was so scared. I heard some noises outside after you left, but they went away.”

Ed dropped his cargo and put a finger over his wife’s flapping lips.

“You heard noises?” he whispered. “What kind of noises?”

Betty raised her eyebrows and swatted his hand away from her face. She pulled him close and burrowed her head into the folds of his coat.

“I was so scared they were going to get inside,” she said in a muffled voice.

Ed pushed his wife back and held her at arm’s length. Catching her glazed gaze with his own steady one, he raised an eyebrow and spoke as if to a hyperactive toddler.

“What…did…you…hear?”

“Oh, I heard some far away tapping. Could have been gunshots. There were noises on the roof, like squirrels hiding nuts. And I thought I heard a bell.”

“No scratching at the door? No moaning in the yard?” Ed asked.

Betty shook her head and scrambled back into his arms. He held her for a moment before kissing the top of her head. He picked her up and swung her around in a circle.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Ed said, grinning. “But you’ve got to let me set it up first. Can you put on some coffee while I get things ready?”

Betty nodded and padded toward the kitchen. When she squealed, Ed lunged through the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

His wife stood wearing a toothy smile in the middle of the floor.

“You got fresh water,” she said, clapping her hands to her chest. “Just what I wanted!”

“I figured you deserved something nice,” Ed said. “Now don’t come into the living room until I tell you.”

Betty nodded and turned to a cabinet to grab a can of Sterno.

A dead plant sat in one corner of the living room. Ed dragged the pot to the center of the room and removed the dead foliage. Rotating the tree’s trunk, he drilled it into the dry dirt until the evergreen stood on its own. Then, he moistened the soil with a small cup of melted snow. As the tree sat naked in the planter, Ed emptied the grocery bag on the floor. Cans of food clattered and rolled to the walls.

“What was that?” Betty gasped from the kitchen.

“Nothing,” Ed said. “Stay in there until I tell you to come out.”

“Not you,” Betty said with a tone of a disgruntled teenager. “I thought I saw something move outside.”

Ed untangled himself from a strand of tinsel and hurried to his wife’s side. She squatted in front of the sink and peered through the window above it. Someone alive in the outside world would have thought Kilroy had been there.

“Over there,” she said pointing to a stand of trees.

Ed saw nothing but the falling snow and the trees standing in the distance. Even so, he waited with his wife for fifteen minutes in front of the ever-darkening sky.

“Let me know if you see anything else,” Ed said, backing toward his surprise. “How’s that coffee coming?”

Betty turned from the window back to the glowing can of Sterno.

“Oops, I almost forgot.” She hurried to get the pot and coffee. “It’ll be done soon.”

Ed placed a small travel clock at the base of the tree. The glow from the display reflected blue pinpoints on the wavering tinsel. All the goodies he’d taken from Massey’s sat around the base of the flowerpot.

“Betty,” he said, sticking his head into the kitchen.

She stood pointing into the night through the glass pane. Ed sidled up next to her and stared into the darkness. No movement caught his eye, but he waited again until his leg cramped.

“Fat man,” Betty mumbled still gesturing toward the window.

Ed put his arm around his wife and turned her toward the kitchen door.

“You’ve had a hard day, how about we take a walk into the next room. I’ll show you what I picked up at the store.”

Betty’s head swiveled to watch the still empty window. Placing his hands on her cheeks, Ed twisted her into the living room and slid his fingers over her eyes.

“Are you ready?”

Betty tipped her head. Her brow still creased in concern and her mouth hanging slack with shock from whatever she’d seen in the yard. Ed pulled his hands away from her eyes and squeezed her shoulders.

“Merry Christmas, dear,” he whispered into her ear.

“Oh, Ed,” she said taking a single step toward the twinkling tree. “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Betty dropped to her knees in front of the pile of food. The despairing look in her eyes faded in the dark boughs of the small tree. She picked a candy cane from a branch and peeled off the cellophane wrapper. A thump sounded at the door. The peppermint stick plummeted into the swaying strands of tinsel. Betty sprinted to the closet and pulled the door shut behind her. Ed picked up the hatchet from the pile of clothes he’d discarded next to the door and tiptoed to the window. Stealing a look through a small hole in the curtain, he saw a large form lit by the snow reflecting the clouded evening sky. The body shuffled from side to side on the porch. With an occasional tilt, it would bang its head on the door. A faint jingle accompanied each thud.

Ed stood watching the corpse for a few moments. A memory of his ninth Christmas flickered through his mind. He’d asked Santa for a new pair of hockey skates. Instead, Ed had unwrapped a pair of used, oversized Barbie skates. He’d worn the skates to practice and games for two years, but the nickname Barbie Boy had haunted him until he’d abandoned his hometown for college.

After unlocking the door, Ed waited to fling it open until the body’s agitated movements lessened. When he did, the red-stained, white-bearded cadaver lost its balance and jangled to the floor inside before Ed could react. Its tattered red suit glistened with pink snow. A decomposing arm flailed and knocked Ed into the tree, but the rotund, rotting carcass floundered unable to regain its footing. Glad that his wife had hidden in the closet, Ed lifted the hatchet and slammed it into Santa’s head splitting the skull in two. Dark brains oozed onto the floorboards. Extra padding and warmer clothes must have kept Mr. Claus from freezing.

Ed glanced once at the closed closet door before grabbing the jolly old man’s lifeless body by the boots and dragging it back out into the cold. Before returning to the house, Ed slid the jingle bells from around the corpse’s neck and rinsed them in a snow bank. When he relocked the front door, he heard Betty rustling among the coats.

“Don’t come out yet,” Ed called as he wiped the gore-stained floor with a damp, ragged towel.

After burying the disgusting rag in the garbage can, he went to the kitchen sink and rinsed his face in some of the melted snow. Sterno still glowed under the coffee pot. Ed poured himself a mug full of caffeine, stirred in some sugar, and slurped. The warm liquid seemed to thaw his bones as it slid down his throat. He set his mug on the coffee table. Righting the toppled tree and draping the bells around it, he repositioned the travel clock for maximum tinsel glitter.

“You can come out now,” Ed said, dropping onto the couch.

Betty made her way to her husband and nestled next to him.

“The tree really is beautiful,” she said resting her head on his chest. “Aside from the zombies, this is the best Christmas ever.”

Ed smiled, reached for his coffee, and sipped. Leaning forward, he nodded.

“Best…Christmas…ever,” Ed said as he toasted a jingle bell with his mug.

Story Art Cover

By Chantal Boudreau

www.Writersownwords.com/chantal_boudreau

Dedication

For my wife Jess,

 Who appreciated the need for a good zombie defense

Author Bio

Stephen Johnston
has written numerous feature films, including OFFICER DOWN for the Lifetime Movie Network, ED GEIN, winner of the Best Screenplay award at the XXI Fantafestival, and the 2011 release DENTENTION. He currently makes his home in Los Angeles.

How I Got My Sack Back

By Stephen Johnston

1

It had been four years since the plague came, and there hadn’t been any real Christmas to speak of since. It’s hard to celebrate the birth of Christ during end times, and issues of naughty and nice seem paltry when the dead have risen and started to eat the living.

Of course, tradition is even harder to kill than the living dead, so the holiday was still observed, but with fewer people, in smaller, less formal settings, in places zombie defensible.

During this time civilization teetered on the brink of collapse, while cemeteries emptied and the world’s population was decimated. War for the future of humankind was waged, with extinction the price of defeat, but after six years the plague was contained, the bodies were burned, and it was time to remind people that life was about more than basic survival.

That’s where I entered the picture.