Gerald Dean Rice's Blog, page 104

Night of the Loving Dead - pt 4

She hadn't seen the house on the way down because great willow trees had masked it in shadows set to either side and then the barn had blocked it from view once she had got down the hill. The house seemed to have been dropped anywhere just as the barn had, both buildings facing entirely different directions and not on level ground with each other. The barn looked worn and deteriorated while the house reflected the house light with some shade of off-white. The windows, roof and porch were detailed in a color that looked black from a distance until she got to the porch and saw it was dark brown.

The house had a ranch-style porch complete with a two-seater swing for wasting many a hot summer day. Even though it was made of metal it too was the same shade of brown as if they had had some of the dark brown paint left over. Jessie strode up the two steps to the porch and walked to the screen door that was half falling of its hinges. The inner door had been knocked in, a crested tear in the solid wood accompanied by a light indenture, and it rested at an angle suggesting something large was under it.

Despite an inner alarm, Jessie opened the screen door and entered. She looked around the room, painted either the same shade of off-white as the outside or a color very near, lit only by a television that was flipping through its preset channels automatically and not picking up any. The volume was turned all the way up, so the hiss was almost deafening if you faced the television directly. She picked up the phone on a nightstand and pressed it firmly to her ear. It was dead. Jessie looked down a short hallway off from this small living room and saw it lead nowhere except more darkness. The hallway directly across seemed to lead into a more wide-open room, but it too was dark. Maybe everyone was upstairs in bed.

Jessie began to walk up the stairs by the second hallway.

Nice review at B&N

Just got this from Tony Harrington, the author of Frayed (which I'm reading next):

Gerald Rice has crafted a fine tale-o-terror that delivers the scares with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The Ghost Toucher is Men In Black for the paranormal world mixing an unlikely hero with a seasoned veteran parapsychologist as the duo searches for the missing host of a popular ghost hunting show. There are scares to be had and laughs abound as the story unwinds to a break-neck-speed finale that leaves the reader wanting more. Hopefully we wont have to wait long for Gerald's sure-to-please follow-up.

Night of the Loving Dead - pt 3

"Hi," Jessie managed to say with breath she hadn't realized she had been holding. She meant it to be a disarming greeting, but she knew it just sounded scared. The eyes just stared at her and the mouth just kept smiling, the jaw still working up and down as it chewed. The rest of the body showed no signs of life. Jessie wanted to run, but she knew that would have been the absolute worst thing she could have done. Those eyes were the kind that liked to watch its prey run, the kind that liked the visual signs of fear, the kind that liked to hunt for helpless insects. Jessie abruptly looked away and forced herself to walk at her former pace. She felt those eyes on her back and listened to any tell-tale signs of grass rustling or footsteps rapping against the pavement behind her, but her straining ears heard nothing of the.

Just ahead, the barn was even closer. Jessie fought the urge to break into a full run, but she did begin to walk even faster. Perhaps the man in the shadows only ate bugs or at least didn't eat people? Jessie had no intentions of going back and asking, but she felt relieved enough to take a look behind her to see if he was still there. She wasn't sure but she swore he was gone from the spot where she'd seen him. That sent a momentary chill through her, but as she rounded the barn looking for a door she saw a house about sixty yards away with lit by a blue-green light like the kind you would normally see illuminating a city street. All the first floor windows and the single upstairs one were dark.

Night of the Loving Dead - pt 2

Jessie stared directly ahead, seeing nothing but the glowing stalks in her periphery and for a moment the dark looked solid. She put her hand out and waved it back and forth, dissolving the idea in her mind that the night had tangible. She whistled again, slow, long notes this time and it still sounded like it was hitting something and dropping to her feet.

Jessie continued, the crunching rhythm of her sneakers her only companion, her eyes carefully trained ahead of her at the darkness, but watching the cornstalks on either side for direction. The feel of the road changed subtly and consistently until she realized she was walking on a paved road that was covered over in dirt. The cornstalks began to give way to long blades of grass that looked deep emerald in the dark with traces of moonlight silver down their centers. Jessie looked farther ahead and saw a large, square building, squatted in the middle of a field as if a giant had arbitrarily dropped it and forgotten it there.

She turned around as she walked, surveying where she had come from. The road was still as dark as before and the cornstalks still had their white glow, but together with the moon at the crest of the hill it looked like a one-eyed beast, opening its maw wide and rolling out its black tongue like a welcoming mat. Jessie walked hurriedly away.

Wound as tight as a clock, Jessie started when she heard a cricket chirp somewhere in the grass to her right. She caught her breath as her eyes darted over the shadows and then she outright screamed when she saw one of them move like a lightning strike and snatch the cricket from its hiding place. The shadow made a crunching sound like a meaty potato chip as it elongated to a man's height. Eyes turned upwards to look at her and they were lit with the knowledge that only the insane can achieve. The man smiled at her but made no movement, as if his body were a statue with living eyes and a moving, eating mouth.

Night of the Loving Dead - pt. 1

Jessie walked away from the car, slowly losing site of it over the hill. Ed's pulse was still strong, but it had begun to waver and she couldn't wake him anymore. She walked more swiftly as a breeze that carried more than cold blew over her and through the dead cornstalks.

They had been lost and driving on a long, winding road with no turn-offs when it started raining. Hard. Jessie had wanted to pull over until the rain stopped, but Ed insisted they push on. She drove through the pouring rain until a tree appeared in the middle of what she thought was the road and sent Ed face first into the dashboard. Jessie was sure he had broken his nose from all the blood, but he was knocked unconscious.

The cornstalks that rose on either side of the road looked white as if the moon was filling them with some of its own eerie light. Their skeletal remains made a petrified path to outline the near invisible dirt road. The tops of the cornstalks looked like raised hackles of some giant beast weaving its way towards her.

She walked in silence, the night like a creeping thing around her, as if it would gather itself behind her and snatch her away any minute. Jessie thought that was stupid, like something she would read in some campy horror book, but it did feel… alive somehow. Her footsteps sounded quieter to her and the sound of dirt crunching underfoot didn't seem to carry anywhere. Every whistle of wind died almost instantly like all sound was being redirected into a giant black hole instead of travelling through the air. She turned her face up to the starless sky and began to whistle- stopping suddenly because it sounded like she was whistling in front of a wall.

Flesh-Eaters Anonymous - pt 20

The elevator wouldn't go to eighty-one. I looked at the keys and slid the small one in the keyhole and turned it, then the button for eighty-one lit when I pressed it. My ears popped several times as the car went up and as soon as I stepped off on eighty-one I collapsed in agony as a thousand pins stabbed into my brain.

The bug was going into overdrive translating dead-speak. I caught brief words here and there, but there was just too much of it for me to handle. I writhed on the floor as the voices got louder and louder until I passed out.

When I woke up I was deaf. The one doctor I managed to find a day or two later told me it was some kind of sympathetic deafness in my right ear considering the bug was only in my left. They say it was because that high up brought me too close to a signal tower. The eighty-first floor is totally empty—I know it's kind of sacrilegious to say that, but there's nothing up there. Living or dead, there's only me. They never finished construction, the naked concrete walls and foundations are draped with sheets of plastic. Buckets of dried plaster, a stack of drywall sheets and thick spider webs are the only things up there. Oh and a little green chair like grade school kids sit in at their desks. I used that, two buckets and a drywall sheet to make a desk.

It's a figurehead position, really. Sure, it's their way of honoring me, but it's also how they keep me out the way while they go on their next Great Conversion. I don't play a part in any decision—I don't know why I even come in every day. When I leave I just roam the streets until it's time to come back. I don't remember the last time I slept.

Termacil is only available by prescription. I'm sure a doctor administered it to you all, injecting you with the diluted version of what Jack gave me. That way they can control the ratio of undead to living. No doubt all of you get regular shots of the follow-up drug, Endurapro to maintain your healthy appearances.

If you see a prol nowadays, you're one of a few. Shuffling, rotting z-words have fallen from fashion and you only occasionally hear of a hoi attacking an arist.

My position does have its perks. I can get as much Termacil as I want, no questions asked. If you look at my arms you can see I got over my fear of needles, but I am not one of you. I should have been dead back at my house with Ollins. I didn't realize until later that I'd cut myself on the glass of the syringe before stabbing that one feral in the eye. A drop would have been enough, Jack said. I've intentionally injected myself with Termacil a dozen times. At first I thought the drug just didn't work because of my body's chemistry, but I tried suffocating myself with a plastic bag, slitting my wrists and sitting in an idling car in a garage, waiting for the carbon monoxide to overwhelm me.

I don't know why I'm alive.

I left work early this afternoon to come here. I was sitting at my desk and dug into my pocket and found this card Jack had given me. I know I'm not one of you… people. I know I'm disgusting to you or you revere me or whatever. My name is John Clusterfeld and I am not a flesh-eater. But I'm so tired of living. The only thing I can think would work is if someone ate me. You're all so fresh-faced, like you haven't been dead a day. Haven't you been tempted? Just for a taste? Some of you had to have given in before—you could slip, just this once, and be doing the greatest favor for someone in need. Please, if any one of you is feeling weak, I won't resist.

Flesh-Eaters - pt 19

"You're him," was all she said.

I nodded.

"I tried to do the right thing," I lied. I hadn't done anything but survive and then wish I'd died. She was looking over to the side of me. I looked over at the stone beside me big enough to split my head open, small enough for her to pick up. I hung my head and closed my eyes.

And waited.

It must have been ten minutes or more of waiting. Finally came a whooshing sound past my head and then I heard the stone plunk into the water. I turned and she was gone.

I came back to Detroit, but headed downtown instead of toward Downeck. Home wasn't home anymore. Bonnie and the dogs were either dead or so far away they might as well have been. I didn't think I had the strength to kill myself but when I thought of Jack, well… there was a plate glass window I'd like to see up close with him. I could go if I wasn't alone.

But there was a woman in his office. A pretty blonde who looked alive. Even without the bug in my ear I could tell she was dead because she had a smear of blood across her cheek and hand. She'd been snacking.

She looked up from the paperwork she'd been reading.

"John Close?" I only stood in the doorway, but she rose and extended her slender hand. Still warm.

"I'm Martha May." My feet were blistered, my knees and hips ached, I was dehydrated. I staggered over and offered her a filthy hand.

"You've done wonderfully," she said, offering me a seat. "The Northeast Conversion is going faster than expected. We may even catch up to the Southwest and Northwest Campaigns." She balled up her fists and held them in front of her, smiling. "International—here we come!"

"What happened… to Jack Tate?" I slumped in the chair, unable to sit up straight.

"Upstairs. After the NCC—sorry, that's Northeast Conversion Campaign—got to fifty-five percent of prediction he got tapped for Upstairs." She pointed up while whispering the last five words.

"I wanna see him."

"Well, I'm not sure if that's possible, but you do have a spot up there. I could have Cindy show you—"

"No. I'll find my way up." I rose on cramping legs in need of rest. "What floor?"

"Eighty-first, but I'll need you to sign something first."

I turned back and she was sliding a pen and paper across the desk.

"It's for your promotion. Congratulations, boss!" She handed me two keys.

I couldn't read it without my glasses, but I scrawled something like a signature across it and grunted on the way out. Cindy smiled that same lipless smile, all in the eyes, and I grunted at her too.

Flesh-Eaters - pt 18

Behind the desk on the floor was a dead body, really dead, not moving at all. I nudged it with my foot and leaned over it, to see the face.

There weren't any flies.

I wasn't about to turn it over; even though I was about to join the teeming ranks of the undead it still felt too ooky to be touching a dead bodies. The only notable wound was just below the temple, about the size of a dime. I'd seen prols with half a head still walking around, but it baffled me why a body that looked intact wasn't. I was jealous.

There was a nametag just past the face. I stretched and picked it up.

L. Lazarro.

I looked at the body of Mr. Lazarro and saw a drop of my blood had gotten on its cheek. Don't ask me why, I wasn't thinking straight at the time, but the nearest thing I could figure was it wasn't fair for him to be dead while the rest of the world toiled and rotted away. I put my finger into my wound and pressed until it bled again, letting it drip onto Lazarro's face and into his open mouth. I really wasn't expecting it to work and it didn't.

There was no escape. I sat and waited for dark.

Something was wrong. I didn't turn.

I woke up to find my wound had scabbed over. The wound looked infected, but not Infected. I took some antibiotics from a burned out pharmacy until it healed but there was an ugly scar left on my forehead that looked exactly like what it was. A bite mark.

The living avoided me. Jack had told the truth; they didn't kill everybody. They expanded into the Northeast Division under Jack's direction, using 'bugs' to coordinate the prols. That was what Ollins had put in my ear back at my house. Bugs back then were these antenna-like devices that controlled prols, but only gave hoi subconscious suggestions. I really didn't know how much effect mine had considering they'd never been tested on humans. The ones they have now are less invasive.

I followed them all the way to Pennsylvania, hoping one of them would break character and kill me. If I couldn't be turned, or so I thought under the assumption that all the undead were the same, then death by the hands of a prol would truly be final. But they never touched me.

They killed so many. It was brutal and efficient. Each time a prol fell for the last time a human soon replaced it. I watched as a family of six tried fleeing their home only to have the two teenage daughters get bitten and then left. They left that family to care for their daughters, continuing as if the rest of them didn't exist. Occasionally they'd eat an entire family, or spare it. To the casual observer it would have seemed random, but I remembered Jack's BOST program. After they had bitten or killed someone there was always a hoi nearby who would drop a bug in the person's ear and I recognized many faces once they'd caught up with us. In the end I was more of a mascot than anything and that's when I turned around and came home.

Whoever was left on the path back stayed out of site or tried to curry favor with me in varying, disgusting ways. I was drinking from a filthy brook when I heard someone rustling behind me in the tall grass. A girl approached me, wearing what used to be a white wedding dress, hugged around her shoulders, but tattered and nearly black at the bottom. She couldn't have been older than seventeen, but her eyes were weathered from the violence that had passed through her town. I wondered how long she'd been fighting to stay alive as I glanced down at the dried crimson streaks across the front of her and the thick chunks of stuff crudded under her long fingernails.

Flesh-Eaters Anonymous - pt 17

I wiped my face several times with the collar of my jumpsuit. The wall behind me was gone. The soldiers were all standing on the tank, riding down on the prols. Their bodies popped and crunched, but what was left of them still twitched and moved. Whenever a prol would get around to the side a soldier would boot it off or shoot it in the face.

But then there was movement in the crowd. I saw one, two, three whose movements were more purposeful than the rest, sparsed throughout. They were hoi. The soldiers looked nervous as the tank surrounded by prols but they were adept at keeping them at bay. I saw one hoi standing near the tank, holding something. Unless the soldiers had any concept of the hoi they never would have expected. It held something in to mouth like a thin pipe, aiming the other end toward a soldier and suddenly the soldier was grabbing his calf. Another soldier came to his side and he pointed somewhere to the crowd nowhere near where the hoi was still standing them collapsed. The second soldier began firing wildly into the crowd until he grabbed at his neck then fell. A hoi holding a pipe I hadn't seen before weaved back into the crowd before the others spotted him.

I saw two other hoi trying to get in position when the first soldier who fell got up. It must have been PF-429. He walked over to one of the remaining three soldiers and booted him into the crowd. Another soldier saw him and took aim, but the second dead soldier grabbed his weapon and they struggled. By now prols were crawling onto the tank, leaving the last soldier to deal with them.

A gunner popped out of the tank and shot through the living soldier, knocking him and the dead one off. He must not have seen the other dead soldier who lunged and grabbed him by the neck. The gunner batted at his hand, trying to withdraw into the belly again, but the hoi grabbed on with the other hand and followed him down.

I had to run to a south-facing window to see the tank round the corner onto Hall Road. The tank lurched to the side and came to a stop half atop a Chevy. I couldn't spot the remaining soldier but there was a lot of activity just behind the tank where the prols were frenzied, pressed tightly together. A moment later, the hoi emerged from the tank, the lower half of his face covered in blood. He threw his arms over his head and screamed victoriously.

There were other prols in the building with me. I locked myself in, but other than the moans and a couple bumps against the door they didn't bother me. I searched the room for weapons, but couldn't find anything sturdier than the wooden armrest from a metal chair and a small hand mirror in the desk drawer with the name and phone number of an auto insurance agency. I used it to examine the bite mark on my forehead. There were teeth marks at the top and bottom of the wound. The thin layer of muscle was exposed beneath the skin and the entire thin was swollen and oozing. Blood had run down the bridge of my nose and had crusted into one of my eyelashes. Soon I'd be one of them. I could hurl myself out of this second story window and I'd only be able to lay there as they picked over my broken body before I became one of them. I could hang myself, but I'd become one of them. I could slit my throat with the jagged screw from this armchair rest.

You've Just Experienced a Nightmare

Someone is following you.  Every time you turn around no one is there, but you just know it.  Then you hear the footsteps as they fall out of steps with yours.  They're coming faster so you start running.  You hear steady breathing right in your ear, feel it on your neck.  Any moment you know a hand will fall on your shoulder.

You duck around a corner and break into a run.  You disappear into a crowd of people, hopefully losing your pursuer.  Finally, you shut your front door behind you, but something is wrong.  Someone's here.  You hear a shoe tapping sounding as if someone has been waiting patiently for you to arrive.  Despite yourself, you begin walking down the hall to finally come face-to-face with whomever has been after you...

You wake up.  Yes, that was only a dream.  And you know what else?  You didn't miss your chance to get your free copies of all the titles I have on Smashwords.  You can still use coupon code VW72M for Goners, ZH32G for Goners, volume 2, and JT58B for The Beggar's Bowl.  But they're only good until midnight.  After then, who knows what dreams may come...