Undead Freaks by Jesse Bastide Page A

there outside banging on the door
wanted to see if someone would answer. She didn't see the point in
hanging in front of someone's door knocking if no one was
answering. But this was some real banging. Like it was something
important.
    She felt her impatience flare up like a newly
lit match; she shut off the water. She stepped out of the shower
and grabbed her white bathrobe from the hook on the door. She put
the robe on and tied the waist and opened the bathroom door. Her
long brown hair was dripping. She walked down the upstairs hall
toward the bay window overlooking the front lawn; she wanted to
know if it was worth answering the pounding at the door, as
annoying as it was. Who knocked like hell in the middle of the
day?
    She looked down and saw a man hunched over.
His head was hanging down and to the side. He had a dirt-stained
brown hat on. It looked like it might be Marvin Searles from the
Paris Farmer's Union. He'd helped her a few times when she was
buying potting soil for the flowers she was growing out back in
boxes. But something looked wrong. He looked...hurt
somehow.
    He banged again on the door. His arm was
stiff. There were red marks and dark red streaks on the exposed
flesh of his forearm. Kelly kept watching. This time he was putting
his shoulder into it. Taking a few steps back and then running,
slamming into the door. But maybe running was the wrong word. His
stride had a pronounced limp to it. She thought she should go
downstairs and open for him to see what was wrong.
    She heard another sound coming from him. Like
a low moan. Was that really Marvin too? It sounded like he had a
hell of a bellyache. He kept looking down and pounding with his
shoulder trying to break in through her front door.
    Maybe I call the
cops , she thought. He's not
right. Something's not right.
    She kept looking out the window, wondering
when he was going to give up and leave. And that was when she heard
the gunshots.

2

    Marvin's head exploded against the front of
Kelly's door, splattering brains and chipped bone fragments against
the deep red paint. It was like watching Mythbusters on TV when
they were shooting pumpkins with live rounds and making them blow
up. Except Marvin's head wasn't a pumpkin.
    Kelly watched in horror as what was left of
him slumped down against the door, then slid to the side. He hit
what was left of his head, which was bloody pulp, against the stone
step.
    She put her hand to her mouth and said, "Oh my
god. Oh my God. Oh my -- "
    Two men walked up to the front door. One of
them had his gun drawn. It clicked for her a second later that they
were in blue uniforms. Cops. Town cops.
    She recognized Officer Frank Soul -- he was
the one holding the gun. Soul had pulled her over for speeding
twice in the last six months, and both times he'd let her off with
a warning. She'd given him her best 'charming girl I might suck
your cock' smile and he didn't even try to make her feel guilty. He
just let her off. Never bothered to run her plates or even write
her a warning. She knew that look almost always worked with guy
cops. Especially good ole boys like Officer Soul.
    The cops stopped at the body. Officer Soul
kicked it with his boot, and one of the legs twitched. Kelly
jumped. She didn't realize that the newly dead might still have
reflexes. The officer put two more slugs into what was left of
Marvin's head with loud bangs and the twitching stopped.
    That's not right , she
thought. Cops aren't supposed to execute
people. At least not in this town.
    Kelly tried to let out a scream but she was
hyperventilating instead. Her eyes were closing in to black at the
edges and she realized that if she didn't get herself under control
she was going to pass out. She might even crash right on through
the bay window and kill herself on her front lawn with the fall.
That would be an embarrassing way to go. Especially wearing just
her bathrobe.
    She turned and bent down, putting her hands on
her knees and her head between her legs