Thursday, October 12, 2006

My Short Horror Story, Warm Blood, Cold Flesh Is Out!

Dark Gothic: Resurrected is out, which means my horror story, "Warm Blood, Cold Flesh" is out too. You can get the zine at http://www.lulu.com/gratistavampires or more directly at http://www.lulu.com/content/429097 .
Let me just say "Warm Blood, Cold Flesh" is Night of the Living Dead, but with vampires.

Excerpt:

I was about to finally leave my husband and start divorce proceedings when a strange meteorite shower hit us two weeks ago. Suddenly, people came down with strange virus, causing an extremely low drop in their temperatures, anemia, and most peculiar of all, inability to stand daylight. Within a week, the infected would die, their bodies mysteriously drained of all blood. Liam was one of them.

Instead of his ex-wife, I was now Liam’s widow.

I stayed after Liam’s funeral to place some flowers on his grave and gather my thoughts. Though our marriage had been teetering on the edge toward divorce proceeding, my soon to be ex didn’t deserve to die like he did from the virus.

Dusk darkened the sky as late afternoon morphed into early evening. My vision was bleary from tears that I didn’t notice the top soil on the grave shifting, clods falling away until there was a hole where the mound of dirt had been. Wiping away the moisture, I saw the hole. Hands rose out of it and hooked themselves on each side.

What in the hell?

I backed away and tripped over something in the dark, landing on my bottom. From that vantage point I watched as the head rose from the open grave, the torso closely behind.

Dear God, Liam! His eyes glowed, a phosphorous green as he stared at me. I got to my feet and bolted as he dragged himself completely out of the grave.

I ran through the graveyard. At the caretaker’s house, I banged on the door, screaming. The door creaked opened and Mr. Hanson stood there, an old man with thinning grey hair and pale blue eyes that blinked, looking weak. I shoved him back inside as I entered and slammed the door shut behind us. Frantic, my grip still tight on Mr. Hanson’s arm, I locked the door.

"What going on?" he demanded, yanking his arm out of my grasp as I tried to draw him away from there. “Hey, aren’t you the wife of the man we just buried?”

Shaking, I glanced over my shoulder at the locked door. "My supposedly dead husband just dug his way out of his grave!"
Mr. Hanson blinked, trying to absorb the information, and then laughed.

"My dear, dead men don’t come back to life. Believe me; once you’re dead, you’re dead. I should know better than most men, having been the caretaker of this cemetery for most of my adult life."

His hand on my shoulder, he led me over to a plump green couch. "Look, just sit down here and I’ll get you some--"
His words were cut off as the door swung open and hit the wall with a loud bang. The Liam-thing weaved through the open doorway. His mouth wide open, Mr. Hanson took a few steps toward the dead man.

"Damn, she’s right, you’re alive--"

Liam grabbed the old man and in a macabre hug, drew him toward his open mouth.

A snake-like tongue whip lashed out, two sharp fangs on the end. The tongue latched onto the old man’s neck, digging into the flesh and sucking sounds filled the air. I circled around my undead husband and his victim, glad that Liam was too busy feeding to noticed and slipped out of the house, my screams echoing in the night.

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