Despite all the information out there, despite all the movies, the books, the comics, the Web sites and discussion groups, despite all the hours spent torturing ourselves in detailed game simulations, no one is ever ready for the zombie apocalypse.

You’d think we’d have it down by now. You’d think that, of all the dangers facing humankind, a zombie infestation would be the least of our worries, if only because we’ve spent so many long, dark nights planning our escape routes, mapping out our safe houses, hording weapons and choosing allies.

You’d think we’d be a planet prepared, but that’s one of the charms of zombies. There’s always something new, some wrinkle. Maybe they’re using tools, or talking; maybe they’re brought to life by a curse, or salt, or maybe it’s an airborne virus; maybe they’re shambling and dopey, or maybe they’re holy sh*t running like mutherf***kers!

You just never know.

Here inside the Wire Media Group Quick-Response Bunker (two-year supply of Chee-tos), we thought we were ready for zombie stories. The idea was simple. Have a contest in which people write Seacoast zombie stories, then print the winner, all in good fun for Halloween.

But it has not been fun at all. There have been too many stories, they have been disgusting, and there has been far, far too much insight into our weird local culture.

Why, dear God, why were so many of the stories from the zombies’ point of view? As if that wasn’t disturbing enough, how about a trend we’ve tagged “the zombie within,” people risen from the dead who are unaware of their condition and compelled to try to continue about their normal lives?

Don’t analyze it too closely, that dead feeling inside, the hopelessness, the hunger, the anger, the shame. Unsure if your life has any meaning at all? Well, maybe you’re already dead.

Also, a large number of Seacoast zombies really need a beer.

So do we.

We have decided to print two stories, the grand prize winner and the runner-up, in order to better represent the quality, diversity and disturbing nature of the entries. Several of our other favorites are posted online, so please go ahead and check them out there. And, of course, we have submitted all the entrants’ home addresses to the FBI.

It will be a cold day in Hell before we do this contest again.

“Every man dies, but not every man truly lives... again.”
—William Wallace’s zombie


first place:

A Lot Like Life
by Trevor F. Bartlett

People don’t like me much. This I know and I don’t blame them. I’m a very demanding person. Sometimes I’m not as articulate as I’d like to be. Sometimes I get so down that all I can do is grunt and finger. When I been fed and I’m up, I can get pretty excited, and I gibber and drool and sing really loud and try to get people to sing along but mostly they never do. I wave my arms around when I’m inclined and I get real angry when people don’t understand me and then I cry. Sometimes this’ll bring the waitresses close enough as I can grab ’em at and people hate that about me.

My eyesight’s something kind of dreadful, so I never recognize anybody and people think I’m so rude. I’m sure, but sometimes I just don’t see who they are or if I know ’em. I got to get right up on them like before I have a clue who they are and by then it’s pretty much too late. Awkward, yeah, in a word, that I’ll give you.  And I got no peripheral vision to speak of, neither so I’m always bashing my shoulders into people and I got bruises on me like a goddamned world atlas but welcome to my nightmare.

Pinch my lip… C’mon, pinch it. Does it feel numb to you?

I’m always tired, like, and didn’t used to be like this. Always tired, you know, but I never sleep and when I do, I sleep in a chair. Up all night and all day most every night can wear on you. Hard to focus sometimes, you know, and I drift away now and then even when I’m trying to pay attention or driving to the laundromat for dinner. Sometimes I’ll fade out, I guess, but never on purpose and mostly I seem to just go about my business anyway. What gets to me is the dreams. You know what I dream about and it really gets to me? Get this: always I dream about being awake. Swallow that. I’m up awake, like for weeks at a shot and I finally maybe start to drift off and I get immediately the dreams about doing my taxes or driving to the laundromat. Sometimes I jerk awake and realize that I’m parked at the laundromat or the DMV so then I start screaming. Hard to tell the difference some days, if I’m really piloting this thing or not. Never felt like I was really behind the controls like I’d like, and remember one time I woke up on the railroad tracks with a bite out of me and my coat got stolen. Never did get her name.

I got a condition, see? Like among other things, my blood’s mostly thick like molasses. Don’t so much pump most days as just kind of slops around by gravity. Only moves when I do, really, and I guess that’s natural enough so I go to the gym whenever I remember. Mostly I get along best with the treadmill okay but even then my joints get difficult and I whine like a cracked puppy and that always gets me the looks and they hate when I borrow their towels. They peg me there that I ain’t no body builder, apparently, and don’t seem to like it much when I sometimes jam myself into the lockers or wait in the showers. I tell you those folks at the gym can move fast when they want to.

I got a kind of staggerlurch, sidewise like, like a hippie sometimes since my ankle got all wrunched over and my foot it went black. I got a terrible crabs, I mean, trouble with curbs, and stairs are just rotten and I fall down in the damn gravelmud sometimes if I snag a toe on the tracks when I drag myself to town and that’s no good for first impressions, either.

I suppose it’d be tough to warm up to a guy like me and you’re all right not to like me. Tired and busted and grumpy and damn you don’t know what it’s like when I get hungry. Man, when I get hungry, I tell you, all bets are off and I’m always hungry. All kinds of weird endorphins pumping through me and I get the twitchfits and everything speeds up and at the same time slows down and I can never explain it to anybody when it’s happening and they never understand this ain’t my choice and I get really mad. Man, my world’ll go all kind of koyaanisqatsi on me and there ain’t nothing I can do about it and yeah I’ll bite you. We all got our crosses, I figure, but brother, don’t get me hungry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry.

Doctor tells me the crankiness is an expectable symptom of my condition. I suppose I could blame my condition but I’m not always so sure cause I can’t help but just hate life mostly and it don’t feel at all conditional. I love parties though, and going to the mall. And the tax office never fails me or the DMV, though the other folks in line sure hate the puddles I leave and how I don’t always move forward even when it’s my turn so they push at me like sometimes and I stick them with my pencil.

And I’ll never go to that damned hardware store again, man, I tell you that. It’s just not worth it. How’s the saying they say? Fastest way to a girl’s heart is with a pickaxe? That’s how it goes, man and ain’t it the truth, though, and I’ll tell you. My memory’s mostly patchy at best and I ain’t the quickest study, but man, there’s a lesson a body learns once and don’t forget. Hardware stores, man… and basements and tool sheds, too, while we’re on it—no good places any of ’em, all full of all damn manner of implements and some as run on fuel even though a pickaxe seems to do the job. That’s the truth. Wouldn’t find me dead in one of those places. That’s the scary truth.

When I’m washing myself at the Dunkin’ Donuts they always holler at me don’t smoke in here and close the door and buy something or just get out or put that thing away so I just rock in the corner back behind the dumpster out back till they come out close enough I can show them why I got to wash so bad. I can see they don’t want to know, usually, but I show ’em anyhow and they always hate when I do that but I’ll smoke if I damn well please.

My car don’t look like much these days and the tires are mostly flat but the trunk still works just fine. I know the gas stationary guy hates how I pull out without never paying for my fuel but seemed he hated it worse when I’d go in to bargain at him so there it is and I do us both the favor. I try sometimes to make it up by helping other folks at the pump but nobody seems all too happy with that neither as everybody’s always with the shrieking at me and I tend to leave kind of a mess. And the hitchhikers are forever getting so loud how I drive with my foot like either completely off the pedal or jammed right down on the metal and traffic lights mostly don’t mean so much to me. I don’t know which they hate worse as when I sit at the crossroads waiting for a reason, or when I keep rolling as I’m supposed to stop, and ain’t that just the story of my goddamned life. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, you know, just the story of my goddamned life.

I don’t always remember where it was I parked, and you think I’m something like the shambling inescapable, well I tell you, you oughta see this town’s ticket brigade. Those guys’ll take you downtown every time and brother, they hate me, see, ’cause I remind them of themselves, and I’ll tell you it’s mutual. Seem as to move real slow like and casual but then can get all quick on you and usually when you’re not looking. Those guys hate me, I know it, and that lady at the parking ticket place had me hauled out again as she don’t deal so well with a citizen that has a legitimate gripe or the stains I put on her dress. 

But I get rejected out of a lot of places these days and I totally understand, as I recognize I don’t always present so well. My skin is oily, and my hair is dry. Gums are black and lips are cracked and what teeth I got left are just a foul ruin. Mouth’s a breeding ground, really, and there ain’t been a deodorant invented yet could put a dent in my shields. Folk never care to see how my hair comes out in clumps and not just from my head.

And people around the Square act mighty agitated sometimes when I’ll put my fingers in their coffee or their dog but it’s only as my hands get cold like ice. Can’t feel a damn thing mostly and a body needs some warmth sometimes cause I’m no good with keys or forks or needlework. My autograph is just about hopeless which is okay by me as my checks always bounce and most days I can’t remember my name so good anyhow so I just leave the fingerprints and let it go at that. They never say thanks.
As you can imagine I got trouble working that clipperthing like so my fingernails are always grown too long or cut too bloody. Always sharper than I think they’re gonna be, the nails, you know, all woody thick and brown and I wonder when the damn things will just stop growing. Looking forward to the day, I tell you that, and some days I just walk the old tracks and that’s what I got for hope.

Never got her name, that one, you know, on the tracks, but she was something else. Changed my whole outlook on life, didn’t she, and then just left me there under the stars. On my knees and all beat up like and sticky from the tussle and looking at the heavens and all alone. I don’t blame her so much as I maybe wasn’t her type at the time but she was something else. She showed me, you know, what it’s all about giving yourself over. You gotta learn to let go, sometimes and selflessness, man, and give yourself over. A creature don’t just live off itself, you know, but it’s got to be fed, like, right? A body’s gotta get nourished. And you give what you got, and sometimes you get a little back and that’s the way things are. Folks get this impression somehow that I’m all antisocial like but they got it all backwards cause I think you got to break down those barriers like and get into each other, right, or what kind of life is that?

And for one thing, I got a stink on me. A real stink, like you can see, you know, like rises off me like gas fumes. This I know, but what can you do, it just fills a room when I step in and I can tell when I’m not wanted. I call it the eight-foot perimeter, and it’s phenomenal how quick it’ll establish itself in a crowded bar or at the pool or in the lobby at The Music Hall and I don’t blame them one damned bit. I sweat grease and the water’s shut off and I got colonies of bacteria like growing all over me. Stuff grows, ’eh? Life will find a way, ain’t that how they say? Like, I’m a freakin’ petri dish. Somebody’s damned science experiment gone too far, only for real yeah ’cause I’m like still right here. Still right here. Like a walking novel by that what’s-that-guys-name, who wrote the book from what they made that movie with that guy I think named like the soup. Funny to see in a movie, maybe, but man, it can be a real fright see how shit can just spread in the real world. Always starting small, these things, little congregations in those secret places. Always from the dark corners they start and I gotta s’pose they got as much a right as you or me. Armpits, toepits, crotch… yeah creepy enough, maybe, but who’da thought a bellybutton could ever get like this? Just goes to show, you never know what’s been in the pool.

I only got two pairs of underpants left worth a damn and I ain’t wearing either of ’em. Rub all you want it don’t stop itching, and believe it. Scratch myself all the time and on account of my jagged fingernails I get kind of scabby like and people hate it when I scratch myself and smell my fingers. They hate it worse when I have them smell my fingers. I won’t lay blame as I admit they do stink pretty wretched like and the scabs never taste as good as you think they’re gonna.

Because of the stink, I think, or maybe the open boils there’s also the flies. The big one’s are okay as they’re all bumbly mostly and friendly so I don’t mind them so much ’cause they’re slow enough like as I can smack them out of the air and stomp ’em or catch ’em sometimes even between my fingers for popping but it’s actually the little ones I hate so much. The little ones that cloud around in swarms and you can’t do nothing about it and go right into you when they want and by the dozen. People hate it how I retch all the time and spit up and twitch and claw at my bits but man I tell you those little bastards tickle like mad when they get in there. Always my lungs are either dry like a attic cat, or else fill up with the glue so sometimes I cough up glue-ropes with flies or sometimes just flies but always it’s with the worms. Either way people look pretty bent out of shape when I get it in their hair or on their sandwiches, and I ain’t gonna blame them.

Like my breath? Didn’t think so… gags me awake sometimes. Damn. You try living like this.

I saw her just one more time, a while later, you know, once, that one, at the damned hardware store and I think she didn’t recognize me but by the time it was over I got my coat back. Didn’t catch her name, but got my coat back except it hardly seems worth it. Got a nasty big hole punched in it now, see, and reeks like used pork. It’s a lot like life. Yeah, it can be a challenge for me to get close to people but Doctor tells me good news is, I can still get hit by a train.

second place

Thirsty Bob
by M. Andrew Feener

Bob didn’t consider himself a drinking man. Tonight however, he had promised his two friends drink-limit impunity at the Bratskeller, on account of the fact that his brother was working behind the grill. Now he found himself grinning over a frothy glass of Sam Adams at his companions. Steve and Chris complained about the ailment afflicting their coworkers. Gilbert, as his friends called Chris, termed the malady “job induced indolence.” Steve just laughed and said they were lazy. Steve was a rugged redneck who never let on that he understood more than people assumed he knew.

The September rain was falling heavy outside the Brat, “good cud-chewin’ weather,” as Steve put it. The night drew on and the three friends laughed heartier and drank with more abandon.

“Gilbert,” cajoled Steve, “Tell ‘Thirsty Bob’ here, about that fly thing you did the other day.” Gilbert only chuckled and quaffed the remnants of his fifth glass. “You see, Gilbert here is ‘King of the Flies.’ Aintya Gilbert?” Steve said.

“If you’re the king,” Bob interjected as he wiped his sleeve across his chin, “Why don’t you command them all to disappear?”

“C’mon Gilbert,” wheedled the intoxicated redneck, “Tell him about the one you brought back from the dead…”

After their inebriated laughter abated, Gilbert recounted how he had caught and drowned one of the many flying pests that plagued their workplace. Bob listened, fascinated.

“Well, when I was sure the fly was good and dead I poured a bit of salt over it,” continued Gilbert. Bob wrinkled his eyebrows inquisitively.

“Did it shrivel up, like a slug?” asked Bob.

“No,” said Gilbert as he shook his head and tried to look sober. “After a few minutes it came crawling out from under the salt and flew away.” Gilbert pursed his lips and nodded matter-of-factly.
“Nooo,” slurred Bob in disbelief.

“After waking up in all that salt,” blurted Steve, “I’ll betcha’ that was one thirsty fly!” Bob spewed out his beer in exhilarated laughter and they all roared in amusement.

The rounds of beer flowed in competition with the rain outside. Eventually, Bob began to feel their ill effects. 
“Well, you did it. You got us past the drink-limit,” Steve said as he grinned contently at Bob.
“I need some air,”  Bob replied as he tested out his legs.

“Get my cell phone while you’re out there,” said Gilbert, “It’s on the dashboard.”

Bob stepped into the rain and headed for the back parking lot as ungainly as a sailor on a storm-tossed ship.

The parking lot in the rear of the Bratskeller had been swallowed up by the quickly over-flowing marsh. Bob’s jeans swished through the water as he looked for Gilbert’s car. He felt feverish and crouched in the middle of the lot, overwhelmed with nausea. He began to vomit, and lost his balance.

Inside the Brat, Bob’s companions laughed and drank away the better part of an hour. Staring at the clock, Steve wondered aloud, “Maybe Bob walked home.” Then he recalled the last time that Bob had walked home drunk. He had attempted to climb a fence and woke the next morning with his hands and knees all torn up.

They quickly left a generous tip with the bill and went in search of “Thirsty Bob.” Gilbert was the first to notice him as they waded through the lot. He was face-down, motionless against the car tires, which were quickly disappearing underwater.

Steve machine-gunned a series of expletives as they frantically rolled him over. Gilbert checked for breath. Finding none, he began shaking Bob’s water-soaked shoulders.

“Help me get him into the car!” Gilbert implored. Steve just stood there, fists clenched, swearing and shaking his head.

“Steve, help me!” Gilbert shouted.

“We gotta’ call an ambulance.” Steve argued.

“No, he’s dead. He’s been out here for an hour!” shouted Gilbert in a quaking voice. They both realized that big trouble would result from anyone knowing they had been allowed over nine beers at the bar. 

“We’re going to jail. What are we gonna do?” Steve asked, bewildered.

“We can fix this,” Gilbert replied.

Together they dragged Bob into the back seat. They drove in silence through deserted streets into town. Steve kept looking at Bob’s pale face and gaping mouth each time the car passed under a streetlamp.
Finally, Steve asked, “Where are we going?” Gilbert pulled the car off the road by the Market Street waterfront. “We’re here,” he said coolly, looking over at the huge salt piles.

In his inebriated state, it took a minute for Gilbert’s intention to click in Steve’s head. He looked out his window at the harborside mountains, covered with enormous tarps, weighted down with old tires.
“Look, if it doesn’t work,” Gilbert tried to sound convincing, “we’ll just say he must have walked home. That’s all we know.”

Gilbert parked the car way off the road, in the darkness near the train tracks. They carried Bob’s body over to the first pile of salt.

“For a skinny guy, he sure weighs a lot!” Steve puffed, trying to calm himself with levity.

As they finished burying Bob and were walking back to the car, flashlights danced around them. A police cruiser had stopped to check out Gilbert’s abandoned car.

“Don’t say a word about this. It’ll be OK,” Gilbert whispered before they were arrested.
   
Melissa, Bob’s fiancée, peered through the rain-soaked windshield as she drove past his favorite haunts. She was furious that he hadn’t come home by 10 o’clock. She was determined to find him before he got hurt or arrested. After driving slowly by the Brat, which had been closed for some time, she decided to try searching downtown. “I know he likes the Brewery,” she thought to herself consolingly.

Bob’s body turned slowly onto its knees as if a marionette were drawing it up with invisible strings. Salt slid quietly off its face and rolled off its shoulders and lifeless arms. Two wide, black discs floated like dead fish under flickering eyelids. As its stiffened legs pushed it erect, more salt fell from between curled fingers.

For 10 minutes it stood, as air trapped in its diaphragm gurgled out of its salt-encrusted nostrils. Its parched tongue wagged eagerly around bloodless lips. Finally it began to shamble toward the road, its toothy orifice hung wide like an open mailbox.
   
Melissa spotted what once was Bob standing in the dark on the edge of Market Street Extension. Quickly she pulled the car up to it and cracked open the passenger-side door.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” She shouted angrily. Bob just stood motionless with its back to her. Though angry, she was glad she had found him.

“Bob, get in!” she cried. The rain began to fall into the car from the open door, and she was losing her patience.

“You must be too drunk to think,” she muttered, shutting off the car and getting out. She planned to help him, as if he were a crippled man, to get into the car. As she approached, she suddenly regretted her angry tone.

“I’m just glad you’re okay,” Melissa said as she turned him around and embraced him in the darkness. She began sobbing.

“You had me so scared,” her voice trailed off as she felt his clothes. They were grainy, like sand. But just as soon as she began to sense that something was terribly wrong, searing pain exploded in her head. What once was Bob pulled her head into its teeth and bit down relentlessly.

Melissa tried to pull away, too hurt to scream, her breath caught in her throat. Bob still grasped her hair as she wriggled around; she felt his teeth tear at her ear. Melissa wrenched herself away and ran blindly into the front end of the car. She fell, sick with pain, but knew she had to get up from the muddy asphalt.

She bolted toward the driver’s door and flung herself in. As she wiped the blood from her stinging eyes she saw Bob stumbling toward the opened passenger door. Tears welled in her eyes, and she bit her lip against the pain, sucking in short stabs of air.

“What is wrong with him? What’s happening?” Too many questions contended for recognition amid the pain. Melissa grabbed for the door-latch and pulled hard. She could see her hair still clutched in his wet, pallid fists as he scratched at the glass. Quickly she hit the door-lock button, locking and unlocking it in quick succession.

“Lock, lock, lock!” she spurted.

“Where are the keys?” Her mind raced as she cradled her ear. Suddenly she remembered that she had a spare set of car keys in her purse on the passenger-side floor. She squeaked out a painful expression of joy upon finding the keys.

When she looked up, Bob was gone. For a moment Melissa stared in disbelief into the rainy darkness. Relieved, she turned to start the car when she saw his face, pressed against her driver-side window, salt falling from his blue lower lip, hollow eyes staring at her. She fainted.

She came to with a gasp of recollection, pain once again surging throughout her head and body.

“How long have I been out?” Melissa wondered. The rain had stopped, and all that remained of Bob was a smeared streak where his lips had pressed against the window.

Melissa drove home as fast as she dared.

“Got to get home, lock the doors, call the police,” she recited to herself, like a mantra, over and over as she drove.

When Melissa arrived at her apartment she raced wildly to the door.

“Call the police, call the police,” she breathed as she rushed inside too quickly to notice the trail of salt leading up the walkway.

Her blood-stained fingers groped frantically in the darkness as she felt for the light switch. What she found instead was damp, cold, and thirsty. Bob drank deeply.

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