Pushing Up Gravestones - Pushing Up Gravestones – Chapter 9

Igor
Kovalczyk– thirty-years of age, and a mere four-hour-old zombie– smelled the delectable
aroma of human flesh flitting about the air. Better yet, he believed he smelled
the flesh of a child, too. Either a girl or an effeminate boy, he couldn’t be
sure.He was hungry, too hungry.

His belly
felt like it had been emptied of all food, sucked dry with a vacuum hose– yet
he distinctly remembered eating a turkey sandwich before… blackness. He
couldn’t seem to recall anything beyond that turkey sandwich.

No matter. Food
were all Igor cared for now, and eating them.He looked around stupidly, as he
had forgotten where he was and why he was there.Oh yes– flesh!

It was
night, though everything took on a blue hue in his eyes, and it seemed he was
in the middle of a suburb. It was just your basic run-of-the-mill neighborhood;
once full of family BBQs and neighborly get-togethers. Now it was mostly
abandoned, with the odd house still holding those who fancied themselves
‘survivalists’. More like the future undead.

Igor
laughed and though it sounded like his regular laugh inside his mind, what came
out of his mouth was more of a warbling whinny sure to disturb any normal child.
As would his appearance, with his loose-fitting grey skin, barely hanging onto
his face; dead black gums, teeth ready to falling out; bloodshot eyes; and a
rather voluminous head-wound, leaking a deep black ichors.

Meeehuhmmmh…

There was a
house on this very street, and he had no way of knowing which street he was on,
emitting the appealing stench that Igor, and his zombified brethren and sisters,
sought out with a ravenous enthusiasm.

Therefore,
Igor shambled forward at turtle-speed, cursing his new form for being so
ineffective. It would take him minutes to reach the home, when before it would
have only been a ten-second sprint. Oh yes, he’d been speedy. Prided himself on
it, as a matter of fact. Not anymore, though.

Once he had
arrived, it became a matter of breaking in. The front door was the obvious
option, so an alternative was needed. He made his way, slowly but surely,
around to the garage which he saw was connected to the house, and hammered his
undead fists on the door. Nothing happened, so he did it again.

He forgot
what he was doing, and so tried to lift the garage door, but failed, falling
back. He stumbled around, falling a few more times, before finally picking
himself up and properly righting himself.Igor grew tired of the garage door and
the taste of brains was touching his tongue now, making his mouth water. Food
was closer, not in the garage maybe, elsewhere.

He walked
like a constipated geriatric, like he was marching over to the side-door. The
smell was stronger there, seeping out from the cracks where the door didn’t
quite meet the frame. The door wouldn’t open, although it didn’t seem to be
locked either.

Nevermind,
Igor had just forgotten how to open a door. The virus had the curious effect of
rotting the brain to liquid mush, which meant that a lot of the higher brain
functions were no longer there. Gone. Liquid mush. A few fiddles with the
doorknob, and Igor got it working properly. He limped inside the darkened home,
moaning and salivating, rubbing his swollen belly.

He found
the unlit kitchen, and began checking the fridge and freezer for food. Nope,
nothing there. He clumsily opened the oven, pulling too hard on the door,
sending a loud *CRASH* out throughout the house when the door hit the floor.
Igor never once considered that he might be making too much noise; he was too
busy searching for food, his appetite driving him.

The oven
was empty, yet he could smell the sweet fatty organs; it was so close. Igor was
growing petulant, tossing chairs around, flipping the table, tearing the
calendar from the wall and the family photos from the front of the fridge.

Igor was
too busy being enraged to notice the two teenage girls creeping down the nearby
staircase, stealthy and catlike. They’d been awoken by the disturbance, and now
that they saw that it was a zombie that had broken in and made all that noise,
as opposed to a small kitten, and it was time for them to get out. They’d just
have to move on, and find some other place to squat.

The girls
were almost out the front door, hands clasping the doorknob turning it, but
they hadn’t anticipated the screech of the hinges that were much in need of a
good lubing.

The harsh
sound stung Igor’s highly-sensitive ears. The zombification-process had
fundamentally changed some aspects of his body. His ears, once specialists in
regards to sounds and music, now mutated and warped knobs of flesh– their
ability to discern one sound from another had been considerably hampered.

Igor howled
out gibberish, angry that he’d never again enjoy his Led Zeppelin records the
way he used to. He was trying to tell the girls that life wasn’t fair. He hated
being this way. He just wanted something to eat, that was it. Not all of them even,
only a handful of flesh from each to take the edge off, so he could head
elsewhere without his gut growling at him.

The bigger
girl yelled something to the shorter one, Igor couldn’t understand what, and
before he could even moan his dissatisfaction both girls bolted from the house,
not even having the manners to close the door.

It took him
more time than he’d wished, but eventually he’d reached the doorway. Watching
the pair flee down the street, at what might as well have been light-speed,
Igor couldn’t help but cry sticky black tears which he had to wipe away
quickly, or they would cling to his eyeballs. He had no hope of catching even
one of the girls, not with his newfound condition.

Nevertheless,
that wasn’t why he chose not to follow, which wasn’t even really a choice. His
nostrils still perked, flaring, at the most-alluring odor. There was someone
else in the house. He supposed the girls fled to try to lure him away from the
other one. They hadn’t realized how good his nose was. He didn’t believe other
zombies had a nose like his. It was special.

Igor did an
about-face and saw the little girl, who, upon seeing his silhouette, clapped
her hands to her face and screamed. “AAAAAAAH!”

He mumbled
something she found incoherent. Although to him he was just asking for some
flesh. Sweat was pouring from the little girl’s forehead. In a state of frantic
impulsivity, she did the only thing that came to mind. She turned the lights
on.

Now, it was
the zombie doing the screaming. The sudden bright light had done a number on
the creature’s eyesight, sending it lurching about, arms groping every which
way. As Igor staggered blindly, screaming his incomprehensible din, the little
girl took her opportunity to escape. She ran down the hallway, finding herself
at an impasse. There were two doors: one on the left, and one on the right. The
left door would have taken her outside. She, unfortunately, chose the right
door.

*****

Tina was in
the garage now. She locked the door, and then set her eyes on a proper weapon,
which there didn’t seem to be. Not unless she wanted to learn how to use a
weed-whacker, but her dad had always told her they were quite dangerous. They
could take off your fingers.

Then her
eyes saw something even better than a weapon– a bicycle.

She went
over to the left side of the garage door, reached up on her tippy-toes, and
just managed to push the button that raised the garage door. She was
‘home-free’ now (well, not really)!

*****

What was
that? Some sort of noise outside?

Igor made
the long walk back to, and through, the side-door, and was astounded at what he
saw. The garage door was opening. But how? It never paid heed to his flurry of
fists, but someone else had managed to breach the barrier, somehow. He took a
few more painful steps into the driveway. Then bent low, trying to see who was
inside. His appetite was hoping for flesh, and his nostrils said his appetite
was correct.

The door
opened ever wider, and Igor was able to peer within. Amazing! It was the little
girl, with her precious body, straddling some sort of vehicle. Igor’s eyesight
was still seeking normalcy, after that nasty blinding session in the kitchen,
so he was unable to discern what particular device it was, whether it be a
horse, dragon, unicorn, or table-top drag racer.

*****

Tina kicked
back the kickstand and set her left foot on the zenithal foot-pedal, the other
on the ground to balance her and the bike. That stupid, stupid zombie was just
standing there, all stupid, looking at her so stupidly. It was funny, actually.
She wanted to just run him down.

The door
was open enough so she wouldn’t hit her head, so she had decided the time was
right for her to blow this cake-stand and take off into the night. She’d have
to find Ferrah and Denise later.

Tina kicked
off with her right foot, and not a second passed before she had set that same
foot on the foot-pedal. She pumped her legs and away as she went, narrowly
avoiding the dumb zombie within slapping distance, which she stopped herself
from doing. The poor guy had already been zombified and blinded, she didn’t
need to add insult to injury.

*****

Igor
screamed for the girl to put on a helmet, but she acted as though she hadn’t
heard, or perhaps she thought she was too ‘cool’. He flailed his arms up, down,
and around, howling obscenities that know no translation. Alas, it seemed a hot
steamy meal of brains wasn’t to meet his cold dead stomach tonight.

The little
girl rode down the driveway, gaining more and more speed, with every complete
rotation of the foot-pedals’ circular-cycle. Suddenly, she stopped, turning the
bike with a screech and looking back at the zombie. Igor grinned, maybe the
girl changed her mind, would let him feast a little. Just an arm is all he
really wanted. She could keep the rest.

Then he
realized that she wasn’t looking directly at him. He was becoming distracted.
He could smell something else, more flesh, and it was much closer to him than
the little girl. He turned his head to his side, and saw a tall girl with curly
red hair. He vaguely recalled seeing her before. Was she the girl inside the
house? He really just didn’t remember, his brain really was a bunch of mush.

“I’m don’t
know how much you can remember. I’m sorry, but we need to survive.” The girl
hefted a bloody baseball bat.

Igor
snarled at her. He was trying to say it was okay, he had no hard feelings, but
he didn’t think she got that. The baseball bat descended on his head, and then
there was nothing but darkness.

Director’s Notes: Had to rewrite the ending because it was a major continuity error. Also, these are the flesh loving zombies, not the brain loving kind, so I tried to fix it to match.