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Zombie Me: Patchwork and Pieces

Chapter 1: Part 1, Litany of Rot

Chapter 1: Part 2, Shattered

Chapter 1: Part 3, Growling with Hunger

Chapter 1: Part 4, Vion Rising

Chapter 1: Part 5, Stand Off

Chapter 1: Part 6, The Call

Chapter 1: Part 7, Free Association

Chapter 1: Part 8, First Taste

Chapter 1: Part 9, Bert and Ernie

Chapter 1: Part 10, Starting to Rain

Chapter 2: Part 1, "Me!"

Chapter 2: Part 2, C.A.B.L.E.T.V.

Chapter 2: Part 3, Raining

Chapter 2: Part 4, Sheltered Hunger

Chapter 2: Part 5, Clouded Eye Open

New short story "The Awakening"

Chapter 2: Part 6, Everything Yet Nothing

Chapter 2: Part 7, The Cheshire Smile

Chapter 2: Part 8, Cacophony of Fists

Chapter 2: Part 9, Still Born

Chapter 2: Part 10, Empty Nest

Chapter 3: Part 1, False Rescue, Hidden Hope

Chapter 3: Part 2, The Process

Review of Brainchild... A collection of Artifacts

Chapter 3: Part 3, Psuedo Life

Chapter 3: Part 4, Wayward Derelicts

Chapter 3: Part 5, The Cleaners

Chapter 3: Part 6 The Corridor

Chapter 3: Part 7, Echoes of Death

Chapter 3: Part 8, The Road Kill Machine

Chapter 3: Part 9, Fixed Lividity

New short story "Alone in the Woods"

Chapter 3: Part 10, Fire Within

Chapter 4: Part 1, Eye of the Beholder

Chapter 4: Part 2, Home

New - Character Sketches

Chapter 4: Part 3, Dead Inside

Chapter 4: Part 4, Dead Soldiers

Chapter 4: Part 5, Kill Switch

Chapter 4: Part 6, The Call Part 2

Chapter 4: Part 7, The Key

Chapter 4: Part 8, Reunion

Chapter 4: Part 9, Unleashed


2004/12/15

Chapter 1: Part 6, The Call



The glowing digits of the Westinghouse alarm clock had read 11:30 p.m. although it seemed to be much later to her. Jennifer Hargrove was a nervous wreck, she had been since two nights earlier. Grabbing her cell phone she started to dial a number known by heart and stopped. She tossed the phone to the other side of the bed angry with herself for acting like a scared teenager. The last words Eric had said to her specifically implied to everyone that there was to be no communication until the media coverage had died down or unless he had called first. There had been no news coverage of the debacle. There hadn't even been any radio traffic on Jackson's police scanner hours after it had happened. They had all sat there as the moonlight faded on the 18th in that God forsaken storage building in St. Bernard's cemetery. Each one listening intently to hear the police closing in on them. Instead all they heard was a shooting call at a bar on Revere beach and some vandals seen spray painting at the Downtown Crossing train station.

She flipped on the television and scoured through the news stations. Nothing but the weather and those mind numbing human-interest stories. She laughed as she though of the cleverly worded snippets of reporting that were meant to tug at one's heart, human interest, more like special interest. Her training in psychology kicked into high gear as she analyzed the hidden intentions of those segments. She thought of her slightly paranoid Societal psychology professor Mr. Weber and his lectures on mass media. He would expound for hours on how these segments were meant to create emotional connections with the viewer to offset the mostly lack luster content of local, domestic, and global affairs.

The TV flashed to life as the channel surfing continued. She paused just long enough on MTV to catch a glimpse of a tattooed arm being pierced by a skewer. It had been at least ten years since she had seen anything on MTV that she could identify with or make out anything that resembled a music video. Her thumb reflexively clenched the remote as the numbers in the channel display continued to climb. She paused again as a large man in a bloody apron wielded a wailing chainsaw. She knew this story all too well, in fact her undergraduate study had been based on the dementia of Ed Gein. His horrific activities had spawned many horror movie characters in addition to the infamous Leatherface. Characters like the crazed Norman Bates in Psycho and the cross dressing serial killer Buffalo Bill in the Silence of the Lambs. Even the roughly sewn human skin suit came from the life... nightmare that was Ed Gein. Jen's thumb began to quiver as her blue eyes reflected the violence on screen. Her thumbnail cut a deep impression into the soft rubber of the channel up button as she continued her ascent. Skittering past Jason Vorhees and running from Freddy Kruger her thumb pressed ever faster. Ten more days till Halloween Elvira pronounced on some channel that was running a horror movie marathon. The channel surfing ended abruptly as the sole image of the scarred face of Edward Scissorhands lit the screen.

An image invaded her thoughts. It had been the one she had fought back all night. The image of an eyelid fluttering open brought her back instantly to that lab. Lit from the ultraviolet bulbs of numerous cell culture chambers eerie forms glinted off metalic surfaces. The glacial atmosphere of the isothermal lab had chilled the beads of nervous sweat on her neck and hands. There in the back, lying on a stainless steel exam table, shrouded in darkness and shadowed by IV stands was a body. She exchanged questioning glances tinged with a nervous fright with the members of her cadre. They had expected what they had seen in the animal testing labs, even the dog that had looked like it had been experimented on for months. The sight of which had left them all a little rattled, and now this forbiding form loomed ahead. The corpse looked to be that of a man in his late twenties. Long lines of fresh scars ran over the entire length of his body. It had been hard to discern in the darkness, but something about his face gave her the distinct impression that he was not a consistant organism. His countenance had distinct features of more than one face. A police artist rendering of a crimal from multiple accounts roughly approached how she had felt. Maybe it was how his cheeks were uneven, or that his upper lip didn't match well with the lower. All this could be explained by how stitches pull skin in random directions she thought, but still she could not shake that feeling.

The whole scene felt distant as it replayed in her mind, Jackson's deep baritone voice now seemed mute and slurred as he stated that there was no pulse, even her own movements as she closed in now replayed in slow motion. Her hair as it had fallen in her face as she tipped her head to get a closer look. Misty breath fell on the motionless frame of the body. She jumped back with a startle! The scene came into stark clarity as her inner camera zoomed in on the most minute of motions, the corpse's eyelid had flicked open briefly.

That tiny movement had the same effect as if she had been slapped across the face. The glimmering light of her scented candles contrasted sharply with the harsh glow from her TV. She picked up her cell and dialed Eric's number, the phone had just started to ring when she realized that she had been crying.



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