Cold Flesh

(c) 2002 Nicholas Thomson AKA MinionZombie "King of the Undead")

A cold breeze crept along the ground and flooded through the chilled air in Safe Water City. The night had come to life and the streets were crawling with people. The cops were out in force as it was at nights like these; full mooned nights that the crazies came out to play. And tonight was no different from all the others. It had just gone past midnight and a young woman walked alone down a dark street full of houses. The chilled air snapped at her naked ankles as her over-priced red, high heels clapped along the slippery concrete. Her low cut dress revealed her ample chest to the night air as she clutched at her body to try and stay warm. She was on her way to a party further down the street, the noise of which could be heard for a good 100 yards, and the noise was indeed great. Dogs barked and neighbours yelled as the noise of both the party and their dogs kept them all from their sleep. Tonight however was not an ordinary night. Not for the young woman who walked along the street alone in the dark. For her it was about to suddenly go bad.

From the shadows of the alley ways to her right jumped a dark-clothed figure. A tall man it seemed from his build. He grabbed hold of the young woman, placing his large hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming as he dragged her back into the darkness of the alley way with his free hand, clutched in which was a large kitchen knife. Already bloody from a previous attack. The woman's eyes were wide in fear as she struggled to scream or free herself, but there was no escape and no sooner had she been caught she was dead. The knife plunged into her exposed chest like a bolt of lightening from the heavens. As her eyes glazed over, the madman picked her up and dragged her warm corpse over to his rusted van that was nearby at the other end of the alleyway. He threw her into the back; her blood seeping onto the freezing metal floor of the vehicle as the madman drove from the scene.

The night was still young however, and this crazed psycho had his eyes set on another kill before his night was done. He had been killing for the past day non-stop, his marbles having finally all been lost. His van stunk of blood and death, but the first missing person's report hadn't even been filled in yet. He was still under the guise of the loner in the van. But he knew that soon the heat would be onto him, maybe not that night if he was careful, but soon he would be found. But this madman didn't care if he was found. He just wanted to kill and kill and kill.

Finally, as he drove his battered van around a corner onto a street filled with prostitutes and money-grabbing floozies, he saw his next target. A brown haired girl, no older than 17 by the looks of it. Slowly passing the row of semi-exposed women, who all flashed a little in his direction as he drove by, the madman turned his van into another dark alleyway and parked there. Stepping from his van and walking back into the view of the prostitutes, he approached the girl with brown hair he had just spotted.

"Wanna have a little fun?" she asked in a seductive tone.

The cloaked man did not reply.

"Well, do you wanna have a little fun or not? Have you got the money?" she asked again.

The man pulled a wedge of money from his pocket and showed it to her before he put it away again and grabbed her by the arm, dragging her away from her comrades in prostitution.

As they rounded the corner, disappearing into the street, the van came into sight again.

"So what do you want buddy? You wanna blow? You wanna fuck me? Where huh? In the ass? In the mouth?" she asked persistently as she was dragged further and further into the darkness, never again to see the neon lights of the street on which she worked.

"Well, what d'ya want buddy?" she asked again.

"Get in the van," replied the cloaked man as he pushed her forward.

"Alright buddy. Your call."

As she opened the back door to the van, which was facing away from prying eyes by being parked close to a wall surrounded by garbage bags, she saw the bloody figure of the first girl of the night. But before she could scream, the killer grabbed hold of her mouth and forced his knife into her back, slicing it further and further up until she collapsed in his vicious arms. As the blood began to gush out onto his black coat, he heard the yelping of a drunken couple staggering up the alleyway from the other entrance. In a fit of panic, he threw the prostitute's body into the garbage bags harshly so they collapsed on top of her, hiding her bloody corpse from the view of anyone.

"Hey, come on woman! Let's fuck!" bellowed the drunken man as his girlfriend hung onto his arm almost in a coma.

The cloaked man dived into the back of his van, slamming the doors and leaping into the driver's seat to drive off into the night before his face was spotted.

"Woah! What the fuck!" slurred the drunken man as the van screeched past him and his staggering girlfriend.

It had been an eventful night for the killer, but he had lost one of his trophies in an act of haste. The killer instinct was fading from him and so he had to get back to his house quick before he totally lost it. He had already killed three other women and two men that day and they were now lying in his cellar, covered in black plastic as the cold night air saving their horrified death masks from slipping.

Arriving home, the madman drove his truck into the dirty garage that connected onto his house and also led into his cellar via a padlocked door. He dragged the body of his victim from the vehicle and over to the door, which he unlocked. He was going to dump this body and go to retrieve the other one, but as he opened the door a blurred figure came into sight. The figure that came clambering up the steps that led into the cellar was that of his first victim who was closely followed by another while a third rose from its horizontal position on the cold floor of the basement. The first victim's eyes were wide and her face was smeared with blood, her death mask was gone and the last thing the killer saw before his throat was torn from his bulky body was the vicious whites of his first victims eyes. Glazed and cloudy, her eyes stared at him blankly as she ripped at him with her teeth while the second and then third cadaver sunk to the garage floor to gorge on his flesh. The killer remained silent throughout the ordeal, his shock overtaking from his warped mind.

The killer died quickly as his blood squirted from his bite wounds that eventually covered his body after every single one of his victims rose from their beds and clambered up the stairs. There was only one left to rise, and that she did, before she bit down on her killer's face.

* * *

Dawn had come and the first light of the day was beginning to peek its glowing head over the horizon. Yet in the cold shadows of the city buildings it was still night. The prostitutes were all either working or were just being dropped back off at their workplace to finish up for a few hours. The chilled snap of the air still caused the first people to walk in the city that day to grab hold of their arms and rub themselves to try and stay warm, having only just crawled from their safe, comfortable beds. As the hustle and bustle of the Safe Water City began to get moving, the rumble of one of the many city garbage trucks reared its dented head and pulled up in the alleyway beside the prostitute's hang out. In the corner, amidst a collection of buildings was the large pile of garbage bags, but as two men jumped from the back of the truck they spotted a trail of blood that led into the stack of full black sacks.

"What the hell," muttered one of the men as he crouched down, examining the crimson fluid on the ground.

"Don't worry, it's old blood. Whatever happened here is long gone. Probably some virgin whore getting her first piece of action no doubt," replied the second man to hop from the rear of the truck as he tightened his thick, dirty gloves.

"Yeah, you're probably right. Come on, let's get this stack shifted. I wanna get back home and get my breakfast alright?" said the first garbage man as he stood upright once more and walked over to the large pile of garbage bags.

"Jesus. This job never gets any easier does it?" spoke the second man as he came up behind his friend, lifting his sleeve to shield himself from the smell of what he thought was garbage. However, as they removed the first few bags from the pile, they realized that the strong smell wasn't garbage.

"Christ! Bobby! Call the cops! We gotta body here!" yelled the first man as the driver picked up the walkie-talkie in the cab, pressing the send button to call upon the police.

"Operator, we need a black and white down here at Wilson Street, the corner of third. We gotta body," spoke the man as he glanced out the window to see his two friends picking several more bags off the body of one of the prostitutes.

"Okay, am sending a squad car to your position, over and out," fizzed the operator.

"They're sending out a car, they'll be here in a couple of minutes," shouted Bobby as the other two men stepped back from the body, their faces pale as a blank sheet of paper.

"Hey guys? What's the matter? Somethin' wrong?" asked Bobby.

As the other two men froze in their footsteps, Bobby saw the horror. The body of the dead prostitute was twitching, her eyes open once again and glancing around the immediate area. Which person to attack first it was thinking as it began to crawl from the collection of garbage bags, leaving the three men in utter terror.

"What the fuck! What the fuck!" wailed Bobby as the corpse stood on its feet and began to walk towards the two paralyzed men who stood in total fear.

"Move! Get the hell out of there!" yelled Bobby, but to no avail.

The walking corpse charged at the two terrified men, lunging at the first man to discover her body and tearing a huge chunk from his throat. He gargled in agony and the second man fell to the ground in shock. Bobby leapt out of his cab, grabbing a crowbar that rested underneath his seat.

"Motherfucker! Come and get some of this!" he roared as he lifted the bar above his head, charging at his friend's attacker.

But as Bobby approached the dead woman, she turned to face him. Her face was sagging horribly; her eyes were glazed over, white and bloodshot. This vision of terror stopped Bobby in his tracks and gave the corpse enough time to shoot upright again and tear out the eyes of her attacker. Bobby yelped in terror as the rotting body tore at him hungrily, tearing chunks of meat from his chubby face.

"No!" screamed the last man standing as he charged over to the feasting cadaver, grabbing it around the neck with his arm, pulled it back over so it rested on top of him.

But in the heat of the fray the rotting woman grabbed hold of the arm that dragged her to the floor and bit down viciously, spraying blood all over in a frenzy of hunger.

"What was the call?" asked Joe as he tore the squad car through the streets, the siren wailing and the lights flashing.

"Some garbage men found a body in a stack of black bags," replied the other man in the passenger seat, Malcolm.

They were both rookies and this was their second job of the day already. They had both been on the force for no more than a month, but they had dealt with a lot already, earning them the right to upgrade from 'rookie' later that day in a cheap celebration their colleagues were going to throw them in their lunch hour. They were both young and had seen a lot of bad stuff over their short time on the force, but what they were to discover in the alleyway of third at Wilson Street was to be their undoing.

"Nearly there," said Joe as he glanced up to the street signs, taking note of the one that read "Wilson Street and Third."

The squad car ripped along the streets, which were not yet hustling and bustling but were beginning to crawl and heave with the commuting traffic.

"Here we are," said Joe as he turned the squad car into the alleyway, parking it not too far from the garbage truck.

"What in god's name," muttered Joe as they came to a stop.

Ahead of them were the three garbage men, the body of the woman appearing to have vanished. The three men just stared blankly at the two rookies, their wounds almost making Malcolm vomit as he exited his side of the car.

"Are you guys alright?" asked Joe as he tried to comprehend what was going on, glancing over to Malcolm who was beginning to approach one of the three garbage men.

"Jesus. What the hell happened to you guys? Who did this to you?" he asked as he stepped closer and closer, his hand trembling over his pistol that was snuggly sleeping in its holster.

"I'm gonna call for some backup," said Joe as he dived back into the car, lifting the walkie-talkie to his mouth. "Come in central, this is car number 309. We gotta situation here."

"Easy now fellas, are you alright? What the hell happened here?" asked Malcolm again as he progressed to the first of the three men. "Jesus."

The nearest of the garbage men suddenly lunged for Malcolm, bloody teeth and claws charging towards him. In a fit of panic, Malcolm drew his pistol and fired a round into the first man's head, making him stumble and collapse to the ground, his gray matter and blood oozing from the entry and exit wound.

"Fuck!" shouted Joe as he drew his gun, jumped out of the squad car again.

"What the hell's going on?" shouted Malcolm as the second garbage man began to advance on Malcom.

"Stand still, get on your knees! Now!" he shouted, but in futility as the advancing, bloody and twisted figure kept on coming. "Stop or I'll shoot!" ordered Malcolm, but the figure kept on coming as the final one began to advance on Joe.

"God dammit! Get on the ground now!" shouted Malcolm, distracting Joe from the advancing figure who was creeping ever closer to him.

Malcolm fired a shot into the chest of the second twisted figure to advance on him, but the bloody and dripping man kept on coming until he reached Malcolm and was able to rip a large chunk of flesh from his shoulder. As Malcolm screamed in agony, Joe firing his weapon at the vicious visage in front of him, the shot tearing through the growling man's chest. But as Malcolm collapsed to the ground, Joe's fire was ignored and Malcolm was bitten again and again in an orgy of hunger.

"No!" shouted Joe as he noticed the third man advancing on him in the corner of his eye.

Turning his body in terror, Joe pointed his gun and fired.

* * *

Safe Water City Hospital was buzzing as usual. Doctors, nurses and orderlies ran about in frenzy as more patients came into the building. But this was how it was everyday. But unlike everyday, the first patient with a new disease was to be wheeled in through the doors.

"Hold on Joe, you're going to be okay," said an orderly as he wheeled Joe into the operating theatre.

The white lights placed in amongst the ceiling panels glared at Joe as his eyes rolled about in their sockets. He was almost gone and was drowning in drugs and morphine to kill the pain, hopefully trying to keep him alive.

"What have we got, nurse?" asked Doctor Cane.

"Bite wounds and massive tissue and blood loss. It says in the report that he was bitten by another man!" replied the nurse who came chasing after the doctor, applying his white latex gloves and mask, ready for surgery.

"This had to happen of all days today. One of the busiest damned days in the history of this hospital, and this had to happen. Dammit," grumbled the doctor as he stood in place, waiting for Joe to be wheeled into position.

"What's this guy's name?"

"Joe, he's with the local PD," replied the nurse as another three come running in, accompanied by another doctor.

"What's the situation Cane? Need any extra help?" asked the second doctor.

"Massive tissue and blood loss via bites from another man. And no, I don't want any extra help. You try and cut down some of the lot out there, besides I don't want this guy cramped. Now leave me."

"Sure, but if you need any help I'm just a shout away," said the second doctor as he left the operating theatre to tend to the walking wounded in the waiting room.

"Right, who's next," he yelled over the racket as the surgery doors closed.

Joe was bleeding profusely and the wounds were pulsating with shock.

"I haven't seen anything like this in my entire career," said Doctor Crane as he motioned for the nurse to link up a new supply of blood as well as another bag of clear liquid.

"We're gonna have to work quick to save this guy," said Cane just as Joe began to shudder in a convulsive fit. "What the hell? Nurse! Get this guy strapped down!"

But before the nurse could manage to do so, Joe stopped convulsing and his heart suddenly stopped.

"Shit!" shouted Cane. "Get the defibrillator!"

A nurse ran out of the theatre and into a room that was connected via a large set of double doors. No sooner had she disappeared than she had reappeared pushing a trolley with a small box on it with two shock pads.

"Okay, hurry it up, get the thing charged!" ordered the doctor as he picked the two paddles up from the small box, the whining of the charge beginning to wind up.

The whine slowly grew louder and sharper until it was fully charged.

"Okay, clear!" shouted the doctor as he placed the paddles onto Joe's exposed torso.

A sudden jolt of electricity burst through his body like a tornado and made his body explode up off the table for a brief moment. "Come on, again!"

The defibrillator whined and charged again, only a little faster this time.

"Clear!" shouted Cane as he shocked Joe once more.

"Still no pulse doctor," spoke one nurse opposite the doctor as she stared at the monitors in front of her.

"Right, give him 50cc's more!" ordered the doctor to the nurse at his side who was quick to grab a syringe at the ready on the small trolley beside her.

She checked the amount of fluid in it and squeezed a small amount out to check there was no air in the syringe before she injected the 50cc's into Joe's arm, which was now beginning to get cold and blue.

"Right, one last time, clear!" shouted Cane as he fired a final jolt into Joe's torso.

"Nothing doctor, no pulse," replied the nurse at the monitors again.

"Right, he's dead. There's no way this guy is gonna come back. Call it."

"Seven-twenty-six," said one nurse as Cane scribbled cause and time of death onto a form another nurse had handed him.

"Okay, take this guy down to the morgue and let the coroner get a look at him. I don't think he's seen this before, so he might wanna check it out," finished the doctor as he removed his gloves and walked out of the operating theatre into the rabble.

"Right, get this guy covered up and take him down, you heard the doctor," said the head nurse as she too left the room, leaving her two lower nurses to un-strap and disconnect Joe's dead body from the equipment before pulling a sheet over his body so that they could transport him to the morgue in the basement.

The morgue was cold, clean and white. Several unused gurneys were against the wall next to the door, the bodies having been removed from them and slid into the large expanse of refrigerated drawers that were to the left of the door as the nurses entered the chilled room.

"Frank, where are you? We got another one for you," said one of the two nurses as they pushed the trolley into the room, stopping it in the middle.

"Frank, where are you?" said the other one. "Maybe he's not here today?"

"Nah, he's always here. Maybe he just stepped out for a minute."

"That I did young lady," said a sudden voice from the doorway.

"Ah, Frank. You startled us, where were you?" asked the first nurse.

"Just out have a smoke. Today's certainly a killer, and it's only half seven for Christ's sake!" chuckled Frank as he entered the room, noticing the new 'frosty' as he liked to call them.

"Ah, another one for the coroner eh?" he said as he lifted the slightly bloodstained sheet from Joe's body.

"Yeah. Poor guy was attacked this morning by some garbage men, so says the report anyway. Apparently someone from one of the buildings looking down into the alleyway saw it happen and called the cops to come. But by the time they got there it was just this guy and his partner lying on the ground."

"What happened to the other guy?" asked Frank.

Suddenly, an orderly wheeled another frosty into the room.

"What's this?" asked Frank.

"This is the other cop from that thing this morning," muttered the orderly as he pushed the trolley over to sit beside the other one.

"Well, I'd better sign for these guys then."

Frank picked up the two clipboards that lay across each dead man's chest and signed them.

"Right, thanks all. I'd better put these guys in the fridge for the coroner to come have a look. He's gonna love today I tell ya. These are number four and five for today already. It's only half seven!" shouted Frank in a light-hearted manner as the three staff walked out of the room.

"Okay lads, in the fridge with ya," chuckled Frank as he opened up two free drawers before placing each body inside to be locked away until later that day. "Today of all days this had to happen. Now I wish I had taken that sicky."

* * *

The Safe Water abattoir was an old building that stood prominently in the centre of the city. It was an abattoir for many years before, until it was shut down after a health scare in the mid 1970's. But in 1987 it was reopened by a new company who had been running it since. Everyday at least five hundred men walked into the building and slaughtered hundreds of animals of varying species. There was a section of the building for each type of animal to be slaughtered and different sets of large-scale equipment to deal with the massive daily task. The turn over was great and business was booming.

"Hey Mark! Where the hell ya been? You're late!" shouted Danny from his position on the slaughtering line.

"Sorry, I know. My damned alarm went and fried itself during the night! It didn't wake me up, how late am I?" asked Mark.

"Not too bad, only about an hour or so. The boss ain't been by yet, so he's not onto you yet," laughed Danny as Will and Tony entered the line.

"Hey guys, how's the wives?" asked Mark while he stuck his gloves and overalls on.

"The usual, not suspecting," laughed the pair in unison.

"Good, good. Mine neither," replied Mark as he smiled back at them, grabbed a large device that hung from the ceiling, readying it for the next animal to come along the slaughter line.

From the other end of the room, through a screen of smeared plastic sheets, a cow came rolling through up to Mark and stopped.

"All's fair in love and war," he said before he raised the large device to the cow's head, pressing a button on the side to release a large bolt into the animal's skull.

The animal collapsed to the floor as blood gushed from the head wound while it was carried further down the line to Danny and Will who stabbed meat hooks into the carcass so that Tony could hoist the dead animal up to ceiling height where it would then be dragged through a tunnel-like passageway into the next room. It was in the next room where the animal would have its skin sliced off and get gutted. It wasn't the best of jobs, but it was all the four men could find in the area.

"Hey, what time is it anyhow?" asked Mark as he blasted another cow in the head with the bolt gun.

"About half nine now," replied Danny.

"Hey, did you hear on the radio about the missing girl?"

"What missing girl?" asked Will.

"The radio said she was heading to a party and she never got there."

"Probably ended up in Danny's place no doubt. Hey, is that right hound dawg?" squealed Tony in his best-inbred accent.

"Yeah you know it!" joked Danny, his promiscuous ways being somewhat of a claim to fame for him. However many notches he had on his bedpost would be something of a topic of discussion by their break time.

"So what do they think happened to her?" asked Tony as he hoisted the dead carcass of another cow into the air.

"They said it could be nothing, but it could be something big. They figure there's some dude out there hacking off chicks and shit. A real sicko they reckon," shouted Mark as the noise of his bolt gun drowning out his normal talking level.

"Yeah? Damn man, there's always some sicko out there in these big cities. You gotta watch out for them, they could be anyone they say," said Tony, preparing his rigging for another dead cow that Mark had blasted in the head.

"Anyone, huh?" questioned Danny as he turned to Will with a smirk on his face.

"Hey man, shut the fuck up," laughed Will as he stabbed yet another dead cow in the side with a meat hook.

"Hey man, what you do in your own time is your business," laughed Tony as he began to hoist the carcass up into the air again, idle chatter making his job easier to bear.

"It's funny you should say it could be anyone," said Danny.

"Yeah, and why's that?" replied Tony.

"Well, there's this strange dude that lives across the street from me. His house is all tattered and bashed, the garden's all dead and I basically never see him during the day…"

"Ooh! Sound's like you got yourself a vampire there buddy!" laughed Tony.

"Shut the fuck up a second and let me tell the story, alright? Anyway, and he's always driving around in this really old, battered van that he keeps locked away in this garage of his. Damn man, he's always driving around in it. Especially yesterday so the wife says. He kept coming back to the house with a load to unload it seemed. I bet he's the killer!" laughed Danny.

"Yeah," replied Mark as he shot yet another cow into its death.

Suddenly a loud bell rang and the conveyor belts stopped.

"What? Time for a break already?" said Mark.

"Well if you'd actually get here on time you might find yourself needing one about now, come on man, before everybody gets all the good donuts!" replied Danny who followed Tony and Will in their dressing down process that led them through a cleaning room and into the cafeteria.

The four men all stood around a table, a couple leaning against the wall, sipping their coffee and gobbling their donuts down at a rate of knots.

"You might wanna slow down there boy or you'll have yourself heart burn or something," muttered Danny.

"Ah screw you buddy, I didn't get any breakfast this morning," replied Mark as he finished swallowing the last bite of his jelly donut.

It was just before lunch, the day was wearing on quickly so it seemed, but it was still only just past noon and Mark had been called further down the line to fix a problem in one of the machines.

"What the hell's the problem then, eh?" asked the supervisor who stood by closely.

"Seems as if something's got stuck in the guts of the thing, hold on a sec, let me get at it," said Mark as he reached into the lethal guts of the machine, tugging on a large clump of flesh and bone that had dropped from one of the carcasses.

"Be careful now, I'd better turn off the power," said the supervisor.

"Ah calm down already, I know these things like the back of my hand and I can sort it out without you having to do that. It'll take twenty minutes to get it started up again anyway!" said Mark as he tugged hard on the caught clump of meat, pulling it free from the mess of machinery. But as the meat was released, the conveyor belt suddenly jerked into action and the shredding machinery kicked into life again. Before Mark knew where he was, his legs were mangled in the machine's guts, his blood gushing out like a river. The chugging shredder continued to eat at Mark until he was left mangled amongst the large metal teeth. All that remained was that above his waist. He was dead.

At just past one in the afternoon, when the paramedics were trying to release his body from the machinery, Mark suddenly awoke.

* * *

The mid-afternoon sun burned in the sky, illuminating the landscape of Safe Water City and its outlying suburbs. The tall buildings of the gritty, dense cityscape contrasted with the serene, gentle and uniformed nature of the suburban housing estates. One long main road connected all the separate cul-de-sacs together in one long matrix not too dissimilar from the bronchus system in a set of lungs.

Sharon, David's wife, was at home that day as she had taken a day of work when the kid's nanny had not turned up that morning. She had said she was going to a party the previous night, but would be sure not to be out all night so that she wouldn't be late for work. But Francesca was now several hours late and was therefore assumed to not be coming over.

"She's probably lying in some guys bed you know," said Sharon as she sat at the phone, speaking to her sister, who lived a long distance from Safe Water City.

"Yeah, you're right. She probably picked up some guy or vice versa and that's all. What will you do about it though? You had to take the day off work," replied Sharon's sister.

"I don't know. I'm not too mad. I save my sick days for when I feel good anyway. But it's just annoying that she didn't let me know beforehand at the beginning of the morning. She could have at least rung me."

"Yeah you're right. So anyway, how are the kids?" asked her sister.

"Oh they're both fine. Happy as anything today, they're outside playing in the front yard," replied Sharon as she peered from behind the net curtains of the living room to see her two beautiful children playing on the front lawn.

"Well that's good to hear."

The sun was strong that day and cast short shadows along the ground as it beat down onto the suburban landscape. In the distance the skyline of the city could be seen clearly, the sunlight reflecting off the thousands of glass windows that adorned the steel monsters that stuck out from the ground abruptly. It seemed quiet and peaceful in Safe Water City. But for those in the suburbs, the tales of the city that day had not reached them yet as the news crews were still running around like headless chickens trying to collect together a story to broadcast. But as yet, they had nothing.

Sharon's two children were small and were on their term-break holidays from elementary school. They always enjoyed their holidays as it meant they didn't have to go to school in the city. It always seemed rougher and slightly more dangerous in the city, especially as the kids who lived in the city itself were more hard natured, often bullying the suburban children. But that was how school went, and in the holidays, the problems of the schoolyard were left far behind. Two weeks of play lay in front of them.

As usual, the mid-afternoon paper was being delivered and the paperboy was riding along the street as usual, throwing the papers into the yards of the houses, but as he reached Sharon's house, he could see the children in the front yard. So he pulled up outside the gate and entered into the garden.

"Hello," said Kate, Sharon's little girl.

"Well hello to you to little girl," said the paperboy as he began to walk up the pathway towards the house.

"Why are you here," asked Josh, Sharon's little boy.

"I'm delivering the afternoon paper, lots of news around that all the grown ups want to know about," he replied as he slipped the light paper through the mail slot.

"What sort of news?" asked Kate.

"Oh nothing too much that affects you kids I don't think. All a lot of boring adult stuff," smiled the paperboy as he walked back out of the gate, closing it but not locking it on his way out to his bike. "Enjoy your holidays," finished the boy as he climbed back onto his bike, riding off into the distance, throwing the other papers into the front yards of every house including that of the one across the street.

The house across the street from Sharon and Danny's home was unkempt, the grass was dead and the paint was flaking. The owner always kept to himself and was never seen by any of the neighbours, but the day before he had been busy, his battered van always going in and out of his garage, that connected to his house and basement, all day long. It seemed odd, but both Danny and Sharon thought nothing of it.

As Sharon continued her phone call to her sister, who was now telling her the juicy gossip from her end of the line, the sight of Josh and Kate disappeared as Sharon turned away from the window, getting stuck into the chatty gossip she enjoyed on a frequent basis with her close sister.

Josh and Kate were playing happily, their backs turned away from the spooky house across the street that they were both afraid of. Their small hands pushed their toy figures and models around, Josh being typically male and boisterous and Kate being more interested in having a tea party with her Barbie doll and Josh's action man.

The garage doors of the house across the street were bulging out every so often, each time getting a stronger and stronger push as the rusted lock held the hidden force back from the sunlit day. The clank of the padlock could not be heard from the yard where the children played as it crashed to the concrete driveway. The kids could also not hear the squeak of the hinged wooden doors swinging open as the dull faces and twisted figures of several mutilated bodies spilled onto the street, staggering in different directions, the sounds of suburban life alerting them all to differing human presence's. They spread out and were quickly sparsely positioned in the landscape. But as suburban life was, the inhabitants were all too busy minding their own business or hard at work or home improvement to notice the disfigured wonders creeping towards the innocent children, Josh and Kate.

Only two of the several figures that had just escaped were heading for Josh and Kate's turned backs. One was a man and the other a woman. The man was middle aged, a few years older than the woman he accompanied in their quest for flesh. His hair was messed and his clothes torn and dirty. His white eyes scanned the area as he and his partner stepped closer and closer to their victims. The woman was wearing a torn dress, her ample breasts now exposed, blue and cold. The woman was Francesca. The children were about to see their nanny.

Sharon was just finishing her phone call when she heard the first screams of her beloved children. She initially thought they were just fighting again and so she was slow to say goodbye to her sister.

"I think I'll have to be going in a couple of minutes now. Josh and Kate are fighting again," she said.

But when the screams that seemed to be from a brother-sister feud turned into the screams of fear, terror and pain, Sharon dropped the phone, leaving it swinging from side to side, the voice of her sister still talking from the other end, asking where she had gone.

Sharon ripped the door open; her eyes immediately entangled on the two twisted figures that attacked her children. Kate was already bitten, her neck gushing with blood, her male attacker's cold, dead hands clawing at her bloody body. Sharon screamed in total terror as she realized one of her beloved children was dead and that her frightened son was being attacked by the bear breasted, twisted figure of her missing nanny. As Sharon stumbled down the stairs in confusion, fear and pain for her children, she lost her balance and fell to the concrete pathway, cracking her head open and knocking her unconscious. As her blood seeped from her head wound, the sounds of Josh's screams died out and eventually disappeared totally, leaving the neighbourhood open to infection.

* * *

As the risen dead wondered around the immediate landscape surrounding the one rotten house of the Green Close cul-de-sac, the bodies of the two children and their mother lay on the front lawn of their once happy home. Their flesh was torn from their bodies, their attackers still there, devouring them.

"Hello nine-one-one, how can we help you?" spoke the soft voice at the end of the phone line.

"Police, we need police and ambulance here, now!" shouted one of the residents of Green Close as he looked out in horror on the front lawn of his neighbour's house.

"What is your position?" asked the voice.

"One-twenty-one Green Close, come quick!" shouted the terrified resident as he saw a third walking corpse stagger into his view.

"Alright Sir, a squad car and ambulance have been dispatched and will be there in a few minutes," finished the voice before the line went dead.

The man replaced the phone to its position on the table, which stood beside him. It was hell, as he knew it, walking the area in front of his once safe home. The blood of the innocent family running onto the street and down one of the many drains that uniformly sat entrenched in the sidewalk.

For what seemed an eternity, the man watched from his window in absolute horror, it seemed as if nobody had seen this happen and were still unaware as to what was going on. But as the sound of sirens began to filter into the air, he was sure that as they got closer and closer, the residents would come out onto the streets.

A minute later, the squad car was at the scene, the siren of the paramedics following closely behind, but not yet at the position.

"Holy mother of god," said Officer Jones as he pulled the squad car up to the curb.

As he looked on in horror, his partner Officer Smith checked his pistol.

The blood of the innocent family was streaming onto the light coloured sidewalk now, it was like a river, but the twisted figures of what appeared to them to be impossible were more horrifying. Their cold, dulled statement matched their gaze, as their walk was clumsy and grotesque. They had come from hell and they were not going to leave.

"Call for backup," said Jones as he reached for the squad car door.

Smith picked up the small handset and brought it close to his mouth.

"Dispatch, this is unit two-seventeen requesting backup at one-twenty-one Green Close. We have a serious situation and we need back up now," he ordered.

"Dispatch to car two-seventeen, request understood, back up is on its way."

As Smith replaced the handset to its position, he also reached for his door handle, and as Jones exited the car, so did her, remaining behind his door as cover for Jones who was now walking slowly towards the third figure to enter the bloodbath front lawn.

"Freeze!" he shouted.

But the third figure ignored the request, presumably not having heard it.

"I said freeze!" repeated Officer Jones as his partner readied his gun. "Freeze you son of a bitch or I'll shoot you down where you stand!"

By now the commotion on the street was attracting attention and the residents of Green Close were now coming to their windows and doors to get a look at what was going on.

"Jones!" shouted Smith. "Over there!" he pointed to the decrepit house across the street from the bloodbath. Another figure was exiting the garage, but was crawling across the floor, unable to walk.

Jones looked on in disbelief, as what he saw should not be. No man with such extensive injuries should be alive, yet the body was crawling along the cracked concrete driveway towards the street.

Suddenly, a scream rang out from one of the houses, but it was uncertain as to where it came from.

"Jesus!" shouted Smith.

"Get your ass over here boy!" ordered Jones as he began to walk towards the bloodbath that lay ahead of him.

Smith complied and came running up beside him, his gun at the ready.

"God dammit buddy, I said freeze!" shouted Jones for the last time before he saw the front lawn of one-twenty-five Green Close.

Both officers' faces turned from slight horror into full-blown terror as the sight of three cold, blue bodies sat eating the two small children and their mother. Their flesh and blood was strewn everywhere and the scene resembled one of the goriest horror movies they had ever seen. It was pure horror in front of their eyes.

As Smith began to gag at the sight and smell of the tragedy that lay in front of them, the sirens of the backup as well as the paramedics suddenly roared ever closer until they were all spread out across the street, this now attracting the attention of all the residents of Green Close who were still locked safely away in their homes, the afternoon sun now beginning to fade away.

The back up all flooded from their cars, some staying with them as cover, the others rushing up behind the first officers on the scene or scattering to cover more ground.

"What's going on?" asked one officer as he came to a halt behind Smith and Jones.

But they didn't need to answer, as the new officer saw for himself the tragedy. He began to step back in fear and disgust, almost vomiting onto the sidewalk right there and then.

"Let's get them!" shouted Jones to his partner as he began to run into the garden, his gun blazing. Smith followed suit and soon the entire backup was spreading out, checking the rest of the street as well as the homes surrounding them.

The three zombies that sat around the mangled corpses of the innocent family were riddled with bullets, only the third one being hit in the head and therefore falling to the ground dead at last. But the other two scrambled to their feet slowly and stood, both oozing from their bullet wounds and other inflicted atrocities from their murderer the day or night beforehand.

"Oh my god," muttered Jones as what was once Francesca began to charge for him. He was out of bullets as was Smith.

Francesca pounced on Jones and began to tear his flesh from his, but Smith intervened only to be tackled to the ground by the remaining zombie. As he hit the floor, a gush of blood landed on his face having spurted from Jones' neck, but before he could rub the crimson from his eyes, his throat was torn out in one vicious, bloody attack.

"Advance!" ordered the most senior officer on the scene as his men fell weak at the knees. Their 'brothers' having just been horrifically slain in front of their eyes.

But before they could, officers from two separate houses came running onto the streets, screaming and dripping with their own blood, their hands clutching at their necks and limbs. They had been attacked from inside a couple of the homes, and as they fell to the hard street, more screams could be heard as gunshots filled the air suddenly.

Green Close had been a peaceful neighbourhood, but was now a massacre. Dead police officers now fell to the streets in fear or in death as suddenly more walking corpses spilled onto the streets either from other houses, or from the basement of the decrepit house that stood as an eyesore for the whole cul-de-sac. The killer had obviously been busier than all had thought and the bodies that spewed from the open garage doors were smoking with the effects of a deep freeze. The killer had kept at least fifteen bodies, cramped into several freezers that had all burned out, his power supply having just been cut off a few hours before.

Not even the paramedics who were now calling for serious back up could help the situation. Not even the couple of dozen police officers could stop the advancing corpses for fear and confusion. Not even a miracle from God himself could put and end to the nightmare that was now unleashed on Safe Water City.

* * *

The Safe Water City morgue in the main hospital was beginning to resemble a massacre as more and more bodies were brought in. Whether straight from the scene or from the operating theatres, the freezers were filled to capacity with the dead bodies, and there were still more bodies coming in.

"What the hell is going on today?" asked Mr. Black, the Coroner who had finally arrived at the morgue at eight in the evening.

"God knows. Some freaky goings on anyway, it seems to be happening all over the city. We've got people coming in from the suburbs, from the city, from the abattoir, everywhere. But they all have the same causes of death. Massive tissue loss as a result of bites and being partially devoured," replied Frank as he pushed the latest body over to the side of the room.

"God damn, cannibals on the loose it seems like," replied the coroner as he looked around the room. "You'd better turn the temperature right down in here. Otherwise these bodies will start to go off."

Frank followed the command of the coroner who was proceeding over to the latest body to come in from the operating theatre. It was one of the police officers to come from Green Close just an hour beforehand.

Mr. Black pulled the sheet covering the officer's body back to reveal his torso that was smeared in sticky blood, which dried as the cold air began to filter into the room. Leaning over the body, the coroner's breath flooded out and disappeared into nothing from its brief cloudy existence. Tapping the large wound on the neck with his latex-bound finger the coroner thought to himself.

"If this ain't god damned cannibals or vampires, I have no idea what's going on around here. All of a sudden people are going crazy, walking when they should be dead, eating each other. God damn I wish I was in Disney Land right now!" smiled Mr. Black as he backed away from the latest corpse.

"It's certainly strange, huh?" replied Frank as he pushed the last corpse into the final free freezer drawer that it had been removed from a few minutes beforehand for examination. "You'd think this was some cheesy Italian movie wouldn't ya?"

The coroner smiled as he bent over another corpse to examine it, pulling back at the tissue of the bites and torn flesh.

The coroner had been slowly progressing through the bodies, examining the bites that all appeared to be the same. In all cases, massive tissue and blood loss had been inflicted by bites from another human that seemed to be dead, but was alive and walking. The time had crawled along like the serial killer that had emerged from his garage earlier that day in Green Close.

"What's the time now?" asked Black as he pulled a new set of latex gloves from a nearby box.

"It's past eleven," replied Frank as he pushed the last body to be examined under the low strip light where the coroner stood, his new set of latex gloves snapping onto his skin as he spoke.

"Well after this one I'm going home. I don't care if the entire city dies and is wheeled in here, I'm not going to fuck about with another one of these nasty bodies after this one," smirked Black as he pulled the sheet off the last body.

The stench was bad, but was fortunately covered up slightly by the cold air that pumped through the shafts in the ceiling to try and slow decomposition down.

"God damn. Save the worst for last, eh Frank?" said Black as he saw the pile of flesh and bones that had crawled from the garage of the killer that day. "Who's this one then?"

Frank checked the clipboard he had and slid his finger down the list until he came to the name.

"Jeffrey Hooper."

"Okay Mr. Hooper, you don't mind if I have a look at you?" asked the coroner in near-midnight humour. "Where did this guy come from again?"

"Green Close. Police said he crawled from his garage and into the street where he tried to bite one of the other cops. They said he lived in the house that he came from so they did a check after they blasted the fucker's head open," replied Frank.

"What did they find?"

"You know them missing person reports we've been hearing on the radio all day long?"

"Yeah."

"Well, this is the dude. This is the killer," said Frank as he sighed.

"You're shitting me," said Black in disbelief as he continued to examine a serial killer. He had always examined the victims before, but this was his first killer.

"No sir, they found evidence all over his house. Blood everywhere, especially in his van and the basement, which was where he kept the bodies in freezers of all things!"

"And what about the victims?" asked Black as the realization hit him that he was examining a dead serial killer. He couldn't help but feel the irony.

"The victims were either shot dead by the cops, eating what was left of a family or walking around the streets and houses! What's left of that family is in that blue bag over there," said Frank as he pointed over to a moderately sized blue bag that bulged with the signs of heads and limbs.

"My god," sighed Black as he stepped away from the body of Hooper. "This is just seriously fucked up."

"You're telling me. The husband of that family in the bag over there only found out a few hours ago after his buddy did a one-eighty on death and bit the paramedics who were trying to pull him out of some shredding equipment at the abattoir. He lived across the street from that killer you got there," pointed Frank.

"Right, that's it. I can't be doing with this anymore tonight. I'm going home and I'm going to get tanked," said Black as he ripped the latex gloves off, throwing them into a nearby waste disposal bin.

"I hear ya, don't worry. I'll clear what's left of this slimy sucker away so you can do your report," replied Frank as he pulled the sheet back over the remnants of Jeffrey Hooper, serial killer, as he was now to be known.

Mr. Black picked up his dictaphone off the workbench to his left and depressed the record and play buttons.

"April seventeenth, eleven-forty-nine p.m. Examination of the bodies of all victims has been completed and in each case the cause of death is the same. Massive tissue loss, and therefore blood loss, from vicious bite wounds inflicted by another person. Needless to say this is baffling and reports that these bodies have risen once more is preposterous, but I have nothing better. I will return to the bodies tomorrow and conduct a further set of tests on the first bodies to ascertain if there is any reason why this began in the first place," said Black before he switched off the dictaphone and placed it in his pocket as he left the room. Leaving Frank to place the remnants of Jeffrey Hooper into a reserved cold storage drawer, Black walked away quickly, wishing to get home as soon as possible to sleep the sleep of the dead. But as Mr. Black disappeared into the stairwell, the bodies inside the freezer drawers began to awake and bang and claw at the metal surround. Frank didn't know what hit him when the first body pushed itself out from its drawer. The dead were reviving after all.