July 7th, 1893
Ira Russell screamed, smashing the head of a zombified stable boy with a hammer. The monster’s skull broke splashing blood along with some other fluids onto the elegant, flowery wallpaper, Ira’s tight leather jacket and the side of his head as he turned it protectively. He was a large man, whose firmly muscled arms and chest seemed in stark contrast to slim hips, creating an almost geometrical shape.
“Fuck!” he shouted angrily, kicking another zombie out of the room, forcing a tall double door to close and locking it in one frantic motion. Having prevented more of those mindless creatures from coming into the studio, Ira turned around to see his companion, James trying to fight three of them.
The man was lying on the floor screaming his head off in panic. He was shielding himself with a door that had been violently ripped off its hinges. Unfortunately it looked as though the undead were overpowering him. His aristocratic experience in fencing and horse riding proved useless in the face of a brutal, ruthless fight. Some of his elegant clothes were already torn from the previous attacks in the mansion.
Ripping a long, serrated dagger out of its sheath, Ira ran towards the large desk where the fight was taking place. After a few quick strides, he jabbed the blade into the nearest zombie’s temple forcing the now limp body aside to get the other creature, which had already noticed his presence. It turned, opening its jaw, of which only half was covered with rotting skin and muscle. The man first struck its head with the hammer, knocking the creature down onto the bloodstained carpet and then delivered a final blow. James was on the verge of tears by that time, as he pushed off the door he was holding. “There’s one more!” he whimpered, pointing behind the massive oak desk they were standing by.
Ira was not quick enough this time and the undead pushed him on top of the desk with a brute force. The man screamed in fear, but managed to instinctively grab the creature’s throat and thus prevented its teeth from reaching him. The zombie pushed at him even more and climbed on top of Ira, an inhuman, crackling sound emanating from its rotting mouth. The desk wiggled a bit with their frantic movement and suddenly, Ira felt his breath stop as the massive piece of furniture tipped, some of its drawers opening with a clutter.
Gathering all of his strength, he shouted, stabbing one of creature’s eye sockets with a letter-opening knife he managed to take hold of. The monster’s body immediately went limp, falling on top of the man, who cursed loudly, pushing the foul-smelling body off.
“This is the last time, for fuck’s sake!” mumbled Ira, slowly lowering himself to the floor on the other side of the desk. He was still breathless after the adrenaline rush he just experienced. He knew of course, that what he had just said were only words. What else could he do for a living? Go back to the military and endanger his life for a sparse income?
Adjusting the leather garments he always wore during missions, he suddenly fixed his eyes on one of the drawers, which fell open during the fight. Some of the papers it originally contained had fallen out and now lay scattered on the wooden floor.
“Are they all gone yet?” asked James quietly, without getting up from the floor. Ira’s focus though, was on something else. The pages contained some of the most perverse and immoral drawings of homosexual acts he had ever seen, including depictions of exclusively male orgies. He had to actually look twice at some of them, to understand what was going on in the pictures. The funniest part though was the fact that this was definitely the desk of none other than James Hurst, the man who had paid him a small fortune to take part in this ‘adventure’. The aristocrat promised him a part of the gold and jewels, but insisted that he also needed to pick up some important documents from his old office. This office.
Giles MacDonogh
Elmore Leonard
William Styron
N. S. Wikarski
Miranda Liasson
Kathryn Shay
Gail Gaymer Martin
Sujata Massey
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Ismaíl Kadaré