Sleeping Zombie

There was an odd knock at the door; it sounded almost like something heavy had fallen against the door making a dull thud.  But then it came again, rather later than might be expected for a knock, and then again, after a still-too-long interval.  Sighing softly to herself, Bess set down the needlework she was doing – patching a pair of trousers at the crotch – and went to the door.  She opened it, wondering if the weird old apple-seller was back with her glistening, too-good-to-be-true fruit, and looked outside.
"Braaaaaaaaainssss," moaned the shambling, grey, fly-blown figure that swayed outside the door.  It held one handless arm aloft and then brought it down.  Bess stepped backwards and the stump missed her, but her eyes followed it down and found the missing hand lying on the grass.  There were still flies buzzing around it, and she could see through holes in the grey, ragged skin that maggots were churning in the rotting flesh beneath.  The smell finally struck her, a charnel-house smell worse than the one from the place where the huntmen butchered their kills, and bile rose in her throat.  She took another step backwards, her hand rising to her mouth and nose and her eyes watering so that the zombie at the door was just a blur.  Her knees trembled and gave way, so she never saw the zombie step inside and fall over her, its teeth grinding together as it tried to chew her young, vital flesh.

*

"Aw, coaldamp," said Morgó.  He was slightly ahead of the rest of the dwarves as his pants, his second-best pair, were rather too tight around his thighs and he was hoping that Bess would have finished the repairs on his best pair.  "Guys!  Zombie!"  He unstrapped his mining pick from his shoulders, giving the other dwarves time to catch up.

"What's it doing?" asked Kuka, peering at the zombie.  The doorway of the house was shadowed and it was hard to make out exactly what was going on there.  "Is it eating something?"

"Bess!" said Morgó.  "Gaspockets, what was she thinking?  Quick, let's go get it and see if she's alright."

"What if she's a zombie already?" Tudor's voice was calm, not betraying the anxiety he felt.  They'd all appreciated having someone who didn't dare leave and so would do all the housework around.

"Let's try and make sure she isn't before we worry about that!" said Morgó.  "Charge!"

The zombie was slow-moving and the mining picks were kept in excellent condition so it took the dwarves very little time indeed to drag it out of the house and then dismember it into something more closely resembling death.  As they stood back, getting their breath back and cleaning their picks off, the birds of the forest started swooping down to feast on the wriggling maggots now strewn all about their front-lawn.

"Someone's going to have to bury the bits that are left," said Tudor, and they all looked towards the house, hoping to see Bess looking back.

"She looks a bit dead," said Kuka after a minute.  "Do you think she was trying to have sex with it?"

Tudor swatted him about the head.  "Baromarcú," he said.  "Do you think everyone tries to have sex with everything?"  Kuka hung his head in shame.

"Well," said Morgó, trying to sound cheerful.  "Let's go and find out if she's too dead to bury what's left of the zombie then."

The dwarves shuffled inside, picking Bess up on the way, and sitting her down in the chair where she'd been sewing.  Morgó picked the pants up and exclaimed with pleasure: they were just about finished.

"She's still warm," said Tudor, looking at her.  "She's drooling a bit too, so if she's dead it's pretty recent."

Kuka poked her arm and Bess twitched a little.  He poked it again, and a low moan escaped her throat.

"Not dead," said Tudor thoughtfully.  "But she's got bite marks–" he swatted Kuka before he could make any lewd suggestions, "–so I think she's probably on the turn."

"Aw, coaldamp," said Morgó.  "No more housework then."

"We'll have to go back to taking turns," said Tudor, frowning.  "But what are we going to do about Bess?"

"Bury her," said Vidor, looking at the floor.  "We've got to bury the other guy now anyway."

"...we could burn the other one," said Kuka quietly.

The seven dwarves looked at each other, not quite meeting each other's eyes.  Finally Tudor said, "No, we're not burning Bess.  And burying her seems like a lot of work... we could always put her up in the old tower."

"What, the light-house?"

"Yes," said Tudor.  "Ever since the lake dried up – and that was no-one's fault! – it's been a bit useless.  There's a nice room at the top, big windows and all, and there's only one door.  Nail a couple of boards across it and she won't be able to get out."

There was some muttering, but the fact that Bess could walk there herself was the deciding factor in the argument and so she was escorted to the old light-house, walked to the top of the stairs, and then the locked in the room at the top.  At the bottom the dwarves looked at the door and decided it was probably zombie-proof as it was, so they locked that too, tucked the key under the doormat, and went home to see if the birds and rats had eaten all the zombie bits so that they wouldn't have to burn them.

And so it was that Bess lay down on the old light-house keeper's bed and fell asleep because there was nothing there to feed her undead hunger.

Kirstie

She found the letter in a hatbox in the attic:
My dearest Annie,
  I hate writing these words, but as I look at the calendar and see that it is November already I realise that it is almost another year and yet Kirstie is no better.  She languishes in her bed, stirring from it perhaps once a week, and then only to shuffle to the bathroom.  Her nurse says that she eats and drinks but little, and that she sometimes sings to herself in a low voice that is sing-song.  I have not heard this myself, but the nurse seems trustworthy and does not drink more than two bottles of gin a week.  Father suggested to her on Sunday that we should take her out for a constitutional and she swooned!  She did not recover from that for four days and I have politely asked Father to consider her health before making further suggestions.
    She is not strong any more, Annie.  Somehow lying in bed all day and doing nothing has robbed her of her strength as surely as daily calisthenics, twenty-mile forced marches, or perhaps that interminable quilting that your mother has you participate in!  I fear she is not long for this earth, my dear, and I wonder what she will say to the angels when she meets them.
The letter was undated, but on the back was a handwritten note: Kirstie died 17 December.
"Who was Kirstie?" he asked, looking over her shoulder as he carried recipe folders past her and stacked them on the floor in front of the bookcase.  He knew that she wouldn't be happy unless she'd sorted them into the right order on the shelves herself.
"I don't know," she replied, lying.  Kirstie had been her great-aunt, but somehow that seemed like something that didn't need to be said right now.


*
The second letter was on the floorboards, just slipped under the bookcase.  She wondered what it had fallen out of, but forgot that as she started reading.
My dearest Annie,
  Oh the horror!  I know that Spring is a time of rebirth and renewal, and I've even read James's ridiculous little book, The Golden Bough, so I know about all the superstitious little rituals that heathens and savages perpetrate because they haven't learned to see the world for what it is.  But I never expected this!  As the croci came up this year, both purple and yellow and truly lovely to look at, so did Kirstie.  I cannot think what possessed her to return from the dead and re-inhabit that rotting revenant that even now is sitting in the Sitting Room and attempting to drink tea.  She lurches around the house and never sleeps.  When she cannot manage something – and even doorknobs are beyond her as her fingers rot away – she simply bangs herself against it as though hoping to eventually wear down the obstacle and be able to continue on her way.  Father wants to burn her, but I've forbidden it.  Conflagrations, even of zombie relatives, would cause the neighbour's tongues to wag.
   The terrifying thing, Annie, is that she brought the pillowcase back with her.  I'd wondered where it had gone after she died, and someone must have buried it with her: a malicious thing to do, surely.  But now it is back and she uses it as a handkerchief, though it often covers her face in macabre re-enactment.  Annie, I do not know what to do.
  On a lighter note however, your quilt is now on the master-bed and looks absolutely wonderful.  I do admire your handiwork, it has real quality.
"Did we find a quilt up here?" she called, finding nothing on the back of the letter.
"Umm... yes.  It's here.  There was a pillowcase wrapped up inside it."
She turned, and saw that he was holding a yellowed pillowcase aloft for her to look at.  She sighed, very softly, and they both heard the heavy tread on the stair.
"Who could that be?" he said, looking puzzled.  "We're the only ones in the house!"
"That'll be Kirstie," she said.

The Judas Caste

"'Scuse me, buddy, but can you spare a leg?"
I barely glanced down, I was leaving the station and the entrance hall always had one or two zombies begging there now. The police tended to leave them alone, and though the station staff were under orders to move them on, most of them didn't like going near the zombies so they could stay and panhandle as much as they liked.
"I'm using both of mine," I said in a clear voice. The zombies didn't much seem to like having attention drawn to them, so the best way to refuse was to do so loudly so everyone could hear.
"Timeshare, then?"
That halted me, it was almost a joke. And zombies had no sense of humour at all; one of the things death took permanently was an ability to see the funny side of things. I looked down.
The zombie was a woman, sitting cross-legged on the floor with a flat cap in front of her containing a handful of coins, some bottle tops and a health-care token. One of her legs ended just above the knee, and I could see the end of the bone, with scraps of sinew and tendon still clinging to it. It looked a little chewed, which could be rats, or could be other zombies. Above that she was wearing a blouse that looked new. Her face stopped my breath though. It was Tasha.
"Hi Rube," she said when our eyes made contact. "You're blocking the way."
I shuffled to the side, and held out a hand to help her up. She nearly pulled me over – I'd heard that zombies were strong, but this was the first time I'd ever touched one – and leant on me so that her short-leg was supported.
"Where are you going to take me, Rube?" There was a hint of laughter in her voice.
"There's a café," I said. "Just outside. They'll let you sit at the table so long as I'm ordering."
"How blesséd I am," she said, but left at that until we were sat down and I had two cups of coffee in front of me, the waitress insisting that everyone who had a seat should have a drink.
"What happened, Tash?" I said, staring into the black depths of my Americano. "Last time I saw you you were still dancing."
"I died," said Tasha, staring at me. I suddenly realised that zombies don't blink. "We were doing West Side Story up at the Cotillion and one of the props came lose and hit me."
"What?"
"Yeah, the prop manager was drunk that morning, didn't check all the ties properly. Just my bad luck it was the wrecking ball. Bad for the theatre too, took out a supporting wall and collapsed the east side of the upper circle."
"How did you...." I tailed off, not knowing how to ask the question.
"Become a zombie?"
I nodded.
"I was lucky, the ball hit me and knocked me over instead of pasting me up against the wall, the unlucky bit was being run over by the ambulance when it arrived.
"The Judas Caste?"
She nodded. "Yeah. They were only too thrilled to conceal the evidence of their crime and hand me over to the resurrectionists. Three days on a cross, a tattoo that looks suspiciously like a barcode, and now a lifetime of spite and hatred from the living."
"Don't the resurrectionists like you?"
"Not in ways you'd like to hear about," she said.
"So why are you...." Still here, I wanted to say, but it seemed too cruel.
"Still here? Because I have a bill to pay for my return to this life, and if I kill myself, they'll wake me up again and add the new bill to the old."
"How do you pay the bill?"
"We're back to those things you don't want to hear about," she said. "But, there might be a way out of this, if you could do a thing or two for me?"
I raised an eyebrow and discovered that zombies don't have very good eyesight.
"Well? Will you help me?"
"What do I have to do?" I asked.
"First of all, meet me in the Popham graveyard at midnight tonight."