Page 1

Eddie Brewster sat cross legged on the hard rooftop of the pharmacy; an unlit cigarette dangling precariously from his lips. He was staring blankly at the mass of writhing bodies below him in the parking lot. Hundreds upon hundreds of festering zombies stumbled around below. The sun was setting and it cast an eerie glow on the scene before him. He sat perched on the rooftop, like a king on his enormous throne, surveying his kingdom of the undead. His loyal subjects were shuffling around under his feet, as if awaiting his next royal oration. Only he wasn’t a king- he was a prisoner- trapped on a roof, waiting to die. He let his gaze wander away towards a more pleasant scene. His eyes scanned the buildings and treetops of the small city he was now trapped in. The buildings were silhouetted as the sun appeared to be melting behind the western side of the city.

Eddie’s attention was drawn back to the parking lot below by the sounds of the mob getting more and more aggressive towards one another. He watched, silently, as his undead fans tripped over one another and beat each other with rotting fists of fury. One zombie stumbled into another accidentally, and was beaten furiously by the zombie whom it had stumbled into. Then, suddenly, without any warning, dozens of other undead shamblers turned toward the zombie being beaten, and began their own assault; beating and kicking the fallen victim. The zombies appeared to be frustrated with each other. They also seemed to want, very badly, to eat Eddie. It was as if they were angry with one another because they couldn’t reach him, so they brawled in the parking lot of the pharmacy like a drunken, angry mob after a football game.

Eddie sat watching -but not really watching- the scuffle going down in the parking lot below him. He watched, with a sort of numb indifference, as the zombies that had fallen were literally being torn to pieces by their foul smelling peers. Some of the fallen zombies were being ripped apart and their bloody limbs were dragged in several different directions. Bloody innards spilled out onto the asphalt in wet glistening piles. Some zombies would pick up handfuls of intestines and stuff them in their mouths, only to spit them out in disgust.

In his old life, Eddie had been a writer and poet. He’d been most successful in writing children’s books, and as his thoughts began to wander again, his tired and weary mind began creating nonsense words and morbid nursery rhymes that Mother Goose would have been proud of. Festering fists-a- flying! Morbid mobs of mangled morons, marauding merrily; maliciously and maniacally murdering in the madness of the meandering mob! Grabbing gobs of glistening guts and greedily gulping down greasy, grimy…

“Jesus-Fucking-A-Christ!” Eddie screamed out at the top of his lungs, his breath suddenly coming in gasps. “I’m losing my fucking mind over here!” He tucked his head down towards his lap to shut out the thoughts and grabbed fistfuls of his own hair, clenching his eyes shut tight.

His sudden announcement drew the unwanted attention of the horde. They ceased beating and ripping apart their friends and began to wander towards the walls of the pharmacy again, where Eddie now sat holding his head in his hands and rocking back and forth.

Eddie began to sob; his sobbing suddenly turning into a chuckle, which just as quickly turned into a maddening fit of laughter.

“You fucks!” he screamed at the approaching mob, his voice still wavering with laughter. “You stupid fucking, maggot breeding, pus buckets!” He laughed even harder, falling backwards onto his back and rolling around on the cold rooftop. His involuntary fit of laughter took over him completely and he laughed so hard he could barely catch his breath.

When his bout of sudden madness finally ceased, his laughing slowed and he sat up, brought himself to his feet, and wandered over to the edge of the roof. Looking down at the horde of undead, he could see just how disgustingly rotted they were. They were filthy and covered in blood, grime and other disgusting looking fluids that Eddie didn’t want to guess at. Maggots could be seen wriggling from holes in their flesh; crawling in and out of their eyes and nostrils. Thousands of flies were buzzing and swarming around the rotting zombies. The sound of the flies buzzing was maddening to Eddie. It was loud and it made him think of thousands of tiny motor cross bikes all buzzing around in circles. Some of the flies would break from the pack and fly up to visit Eddie. They would buzz about his head, flying and dancing in crazy circles around him. He swatted at them, but they moved too quickly for the swatting to do any good. “Fucking flies! I’m not dead and rotting yet you bastards! Go back and eat those nasty things down there!” Eventually the flies lost interest in him and he went back to peering over the edge of the roof. The smell of all that decaying flesh wafted up to fill his nostrils, making him feel queasy. He spat onto one of the zombies’ heads.

[ Continue to page 2 ]