Bits of the Dead: A Zombie Anthology by Anthology

Author:Anthology [Anthology]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: +NEXT, Horror, Short Stories, +UNCHECKED, Lang:en
Publisher: Coscom Entertainment
Published: 2012-03-18T20:07:20+00:00

The Hades slowly orbited Earth. A hundred acres of soil and grass lay damp under the ribs of her roof. A faulty floodlight blinked overhead while giant fans whirred around the empty hall.

Wesley Orton frowned as he perused the ship's manifest. Five thousand and eighty-three names? That's bizarre, he thought. Eleven too many.

He didn't remember hitting his head or falling onto the wet soil, but he had woken, filthy, in the unfinished part of his cemetery.

Maybe there's someone else on board? His head pounded just above his left temple. But surely I would've heard them. He couldn't remember. Even the cold shower hadn't helped.

Wesley was the Hades' sole caretaker, the only soul on board. He had maintained the cemetery ship for fourteen years. He was forty-nine.

Sally Wainwright, Francesco Pirli . . . He marked all the names he didn't recognise. They were easy to spot. After fourteen years, I ought to know . . .

He'd made no mistake. Eleven names too many. He fell dizzy on his way to the cargo bay, where he found no evidence of unauthorized access. Then what's happened?

A shiny shovel he'd never seen before stood against Alice McGovern's headstone cross. Her grave was untouched, but Wesley couldn't bear to look further. He felt violated. He collapsed to his knees, disgusted. Plots all across the cemetery had been dug up, names he knew well, graves he'd cared for . . . desecrated.

Salty tears streamed to his lips. He felt ashamed.

He wandered by rows of empty graves. Pain jack-hammered his skull. Names on the headstones blurred as he passed while the rafters high above flickered from view and shadow veiled the far side of the cemetery.

Wesley stumbled toward the new section he had yet to finish. He gripped his temples and squeezed. The soil bore hundreds of footprints. Barely able to stand, he stared at a man's body lying facedown across the final, churned grave. The back of the shirt was not filthy. He hasn't been dug up? With trembling hands he turned the body over.

"Don't know you," he whispered. Checking the man's pockets, Wesley found a wallet. Francesco Pirli.

"One of the new ones?"

He glanced up at the headstone. His eyes widened. He slapped his face. Twice. What the---?

wesley orton.

With a cold shudder, he backed away from the body, into the shadow. The soil fumed. His back suddenly hit something. He turned. In the artificial gloaming, hundreds of decrepit figures huddled at the vast window. Some wore clothes, others bore nothing at all, not even skin. The awful smell overpowered him.

He ached deep inside. "I died? I killed Pirli . . . my replacement?" The memory flickered with the faulty floodlight.

The wreckage of an alien spacecraft hung from the Hades' roof. A viscous orange liquid dripped inside and out.

Among old friends, Wesley had never felt so lonely. But for the first time, he saw the faces of the names he knew.

They stared out longingly towards Earth.

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