Tag Archives: zombies

Olivia Comes Home

sue

© Sue Vincent

Olivia tiredly trudged down the steep, rocky walk toward the village. It had been a disappointing journey for the most part. She hoped this wouldn’t be another town that enforced masks. She always kept one handy, but it frequently smudged the pasty pancake makeup liberally applied on her face. Didn’t do much for her black lipstick and heavy mascara either.

She was barely an adult, not quite twenty. Yet it seemed like she had been searching forever. The scene before her was almost antithetical to both herself and her quest. It could have been a town out of her great-grandma’s favorite movie, the “Sound of Music.” High clock tower, quaint houses and buildings, a study in pastels. And she was a girl of stark blacks and whites punctuated by multiple piercings. For her, goth was not a passing fancy.

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“The Babel Project” Has Been Accepted Into the Terror Tract Anthology “7 Deadly Sins”

7

Promotional image from Terror Tract Press

Yesterday, I published a bit of a tease, but have since been given permission to make a more complete announcement.

My short story “The Babel Project” has been accepted into the Terror Tract horror anthology “7 Deadly Sins”. Not including the Sweetycat Press contest winner and the Reedsy publication, that’s nine stories accepted into anthologies and periodicals so far for 2020.

You may recall that my short story From Deep Within the Skin has been published by the same press in the anthology Infestation.

Both horror stories are presented in a science fiction context, but where the former included both homegrown and alien creepy crawlies, this one, like so many other stories these days, focuses on a global pandemic threatening to wipe out all human life.

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It’s Safe Now

sunrise

© Roger Bultot

“It’s over Grandpa. Sun’s coming up. We’ll be okay.”

Timmy’s Grandfather lay asleep on the duck blind’s floor. Yesterday, they’d been hunting and got lost. Couldn’t find the truck. Sun was going down when they saw the first in a forgotten graveyard.

These zombies were real. Fought them off while their ammo lasted. Grandpa got scratched, but they hid back in the blind. It’s over now.

“Grandpa?” Timmy shook the old man. “Wake up.”

Bloodshot eyes oozing yellow mucus snapped open. It grabbed Timmy’s arms fast.

“Grandpa, no!”

Just because the sun comes up doesn’t mean the monsters go away.

I wrote this for the Rochelle Wisoff-Fields writing challenge of 27 October 2017. The idea is to use the image above to inspire crafting a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. My word count is 100.

Decades ago, I saw the 1968 black and white film Night of the Living Dead on TV. I don’t like horror films beyond the old 1930s-1950s Universal horror films (Frankenstein, Werewolf, and such), but this was supposed to be a classic.

As expected, I was scared out of my wits and the movie has a tragic, ironic ending. Today, television is full of zombie-type shows, and I refuse to watch any of them. But it is “Halloween week” and horror stories are expected, so I thought I’d create one (though it’s not my first).

Poor Timmy.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Day the Kid Got a Stuffed Animal: Part 2

baby

© James Pyles

This is the direct sequel and conclusion of part one of this story, which was based on a plot developed by my eight-year-old grandson.

Chapter 4: Glowing Red Eyes

Little Dan was having a hard time sleeping. Every little noise woke him up and reminded him of the horrible things that had happened and the evil toy giraffe.

Then, at the foot of his bed, he heard a familiar voice.

“You didn’t think you could get away from me that easily, did you Dan?

Dan looked and saw the stuffed giraffe Baby with the terrible glowing red eyes.

He jumped out of bed like a shot and started running for the bedroom door. “Mom! Mom! Baby’s back!”

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The Prayer

church

© KayllistisQuill.com

Gary was the only one in church. Everyone else was dead or changed. He was temporarily safe. They dared not enter a Holy place. But soon hunger and thirst would force him outside to forage. If he prayed hard enough, maybe God would have mercy. His wife and children were killed in the first attack, but his little granddaughter Lisa was changed and part of the Zombie horde. “Please save her, God.”

A voice whispered, “He did, Papa. That’s just my body, not me.” Gary wept as his family in Heaven reassured him they were safe and waiting for him.

I didn’t find any flash fiction writing prompts in my email inbox this morning, so I decided to go looking for some. I found three at KayllistisQuill.com. The instructions say to pick one of the three photos and write a 15-minute story. I decided to change things slightly and do the usual “100 words” limitation. I also decided to write three different stories based on the three photos presented. This is number one.

This story is exactly 100 words long.

The next story in today’s series is Over the Edge.

Halloween Horror Story Special

shadow man

Image: jimharold.com

In going through the short stories I’ve written for this the “Powered by Robots” blog so far, and keeping in mind that Halloween is coming up fast (which is the favorite celebration of some folks who like things such as science fiction, fantasy, and horror), I compiled a list of five tales for my “Halloween Special offering”.

Have a look at these:

The Oppressed People: From the Chronicles of the Diluvian Kings

Shay the Dragon had been terrorizing the People of the Village for untold generations. Today, having heard from the King’s men that the dragon had been severely injured and was lying wounded in her lair, the People decided to strike back and to kill their ancient foe. But what the People find inside that lair is far different from what their legends of the dragon tell.

Last Night of the Vampire

Adrian is a vampire trapped in downtown Los Angeles with thousands of people who have been quarantined from the rest of the city due to the outbreak of a deadly plague. Will Adrian prey on his helpless victims to their extinction or is he their only hope for survival?

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They’re Finally Here

clown

From the mini-series “It” (1990)

“I’m getting tired of all these clowns trying to lure our kids into the woods or back alleys and I’m going to stop them any way I can.” Brett stuffed the business end of his .45 into his waistband as he opened the back door.

“No, please don’t.” His wife Sheila ran up to him and grabbed his free arm, then staggered backward as her furious husband shook off her grip.

Nine-year-old Teddy and his six-year-old sister Pam were peeking into the kitchen from the hallway not knowing who to be more scared of, the clowns or Daddy.

For months, reports of clowns wandering the streets of communities all across America had been in the news, but in Alanville, Idaho, things had taken a frightening turn.

The small, rural town in the center of the state, famed for its apple orchards, had a population of barely 5,000. It was the type of American community where everyone still knew their neighbors, people waved and said hello as they passed each other on the sidewalk, and doors on cars and houses were only occasionally locked. It was what magazines called a “family friendly community,” a wonderful place to raise children, or at least it had been up until last month.

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