Lost Worlds (my sci-fi short collection)

Black Death (Part 1)

Author's Note: written for Forbidden Planet's SFSD 6 - Round Four.

Sub-genre - CandlePunk

Setting - Picturesque Village

Compulsory Item - Mallet

Compulsory Quote - You motherfuckers are crazy! Look at that big motherfucker, got a rocket launcher!

Song - Ripple -

Ripple in still water,

When there is no pebble tossed,

Nor wind to blow.

Black Death

Hal Fletcher first knew there was something dreadfully wrong when he saw his mother walking towards him. It wasn't that her best dress, the blue one, was stained and dirty, although that was unusual enough to have him staring, no, it was the simple fact that she was dead.

He had buried her himself, a week ago, in the little churchyard, most of the village had attended the simple service. And yet, here she was, walking towards him across the village green, sending the few sheep which had been contentedly grazing, scampering away, as far as they could get. She was smiling at him but there was something wrong with her face.

He swallowed, unable to move, frozen in disbelief, as she came nearer and nearer. "Ma?"

She didn't answer.

Now she was close enough that he could see her features. Her eyes were white and bloodshot, her nose was missing and her smile wasn't really a smile, it was more like a gaping hole where her tongue used to be.

Hal threw up, right where he was standing.

By the time he straightened up again she was only a few feet away. Before his brain realised he had made a decision, Hal found he had drawn the crossbow from the sling behind his back.

"Sorry, Ma!" He shut his eyes and fired into her chest.

The creature, he could no longer think of it as his mother, kept coming. Hal started backing away, firing bolt after bolt at the ghastly creature in a frenzy. Nothing seemed to stop it, the obscene creature, riddled with arrows, shambled relentlessly towards him. Gasping now in panic, Hal managed to shoot an arrow right between its eyes. Instantly it fell to the ground, unmoving.

Hal stared at it, panting. He couldn't leave the rotting corpse there for anyone to stumble over but there was no way in hell he was going to touch it.

He shook his head, forcing himself to focus, then walked unsteadily back to his little rose covered cottage which fronted the green. A few moments later he came out with a bucket of pitch and a stick with cloth wrapped around one end. He dipped the torch in the pitch, then poured the rest of it over the corpse and set it alight with the striker in his belt. Still in shock, he watched it burn, burn until a greasy black stain was all that remained.

Hal ran a slightly shaky hand through his flaxen hair, god, he needed a drink. He staggered back to his cottage and broached a new barrel of ale.

Goodwife Fletcher was the first of the walking dead to plague Beescombe.