A Thing for Zombies by Saul Tanpepper

Author:Saul Tanpepper [Tanpepper, Saul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror, Lang:en
Publisher: Brinestone Press
Published: 2012-04-23T10:30:16+00:00

* * *

Gabby McNichols. I mulled her name over and over again in my head as I walked home. What a freaking blast from the past.

I totally had had a thing for her years back. It wasn’t just me. All the boys in junior high did. She’d started teaching when I was a freshman and it seemed like there was a sudden influx of boys all interested in taking private piano lessons. I can still remember guys going around the halls bragging she told them they had ‘magical fingers.’

She’d been mysteriously fired the next year.

It felt really weird knowing someone who’d died and come back like that. I mean, I didn’t really know Gabby, but still…

I wondered what it had been like, to die. To come back.

I wondered what it must be like now for her and her husband, both zombies, forever together. Do they, you know…

Do it?

And how much do you have to be into a person get to that point where you say, I can’t go on without you, so bite me and we can be together forever?

I threw my bag on the floor of the living room when I got home and plunked my feet up on the coffee table, letting out a huge exhale of fatigue. I was sweating and my throat was parched. After a few minutes, I realized it was warmer in the house than it should have been. Somebody had turned off the AC.

I got up to bump it on. The thermostat was in the hallway. Through the doorway at the other end, I could see Gwen standing at the kitchen sink getting a glass of water. I knew it couldn’t have been her messing with the thermostat, since she’s like the Ice Queen and insists that we keep the temperature at a constant four degrees above absolute zero. So why would she allow it to get so warm in here?

The thermometer said it was a balmy seventy five. I nudged it back down to sixty-eight.

Gwen turned away from me and disappeared from view without seeing me.

“Take this,” I heard her say. “It’ll take the edge off.” There was a mumbled reply, something I couldn’t hear from someone I couldn’t see, and it was too quiet for me to recognize the voice. Then, Gwen again: “No, nothing that strong, just Tylenol.”

“Hey, sis,” I called.

She stuck her head around the doorframe and squinted down the darkened hallway at me.

“Who are you talking to?”

“Great,” she said to whoever was in the kitchen with her, and not in a nice way, either. “Kevin’s home.”

“Yeah, great to see you too, Gwench.”

I made my way there and nearly choked when I saw Jamie sitting at our table. She was shivering beneath a blanket, her hands around the glass Gwen had just filled. There were big, puffy bags beneath her eyes, and her face was bright red and swollen. She looked like death, and not even warmed over, either.

“Fuck me.”

“Gee, thanks, Kev.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say, which was just as well since my throat was threatening to close up.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.