Darlings of Decay Read online

  She tossed the spoon into the sink along with the sponge and started searching for the proper cover for the particular travel mug she had chosen. The covers were all jumbled together in the same drawer, and Margot had to play hide and seek, experimenting with a couple that looked right, before she found one that fit. Roy had always complained about the way she had organized things in the kitchen, but he had never offered to help rectify the perceived problem.

  They had relied on Margot’s income alone, to begin with, but then Roy’s writing career had taken off, and suddenly they had had money. It was not enough for her to quit her job, or even revert to part-time in order to finish school, but it had been enough that they had started living more comfortably. Several months ago, they had taken their first family vacation in years, and some of the burden of paying the bills had been lifted from Margot’s shoulders. It had also meant, however, that Roy had spent more and more time locked up in his office, chasing for even more success after enjoying the first, rarely coming out, even for meals. Now, Margot never saw him.

  Margot pushed her coffee to one side, and started digging through the cupboards for a granola bar. Since her toast had made the sacrificial leap, she would settle for something packaged and instant for breakfast, a concession that she would have to make that morning. When Roy had used to do all the grocery shopping, he would always buy the most disgusting, sugar-laden things on the market, chocolate-covered and filled with marshmallows and caramel. They were merely chocolate bars masquerading as something healthy. Now that that duty had been relegated to her, with the myriad of other responsibilities that she had been forced to assume because Roy was no longer able, Margot selected proper food. Her granola bars were high fibre, low fat, and reduced sugar. She had to stay fit after all. She was always on the run, and sometimes, she had to run faster than others.

  Margot heard a few breathy noises and more shuffling from Roy’s office. He was getting restless. That drew her attention away from the cupboards and she glanced at her watch. Seeing the time, she sucked in a breath sharply. She had ten minutes left before she had to leave, if she wanted to catch her train. That did not leave her much time to do everything that she had to do.

  “Briefcase,” she grumbled, staring haplessly about the kitchen. It was very disorderly, and would remain that way until Saturday, when she would finally be available to tidy it. “Where is my briefcase?”

  There was a crash from down below, somewhere in the basement. Margot rolled her eyes and moaned. It sounded like something had broken, but she would not be able to investigate. No one in their right mind would go down there without a suit of armour and a flamethrower to clear the path. She could just picture herself tripping over something in the dark, left haphazardly on the stairs, and falling to her doom. She did not have the time for that. She did not have the time for anything other than getting ready for work.

  Finally, her gaze did settle on her briefcase. She drew it out and tossed it on top of the table, along with her travel mug and granola bar. Margot needed one last thing before she left the house, and...

  The unusual smell in the air, beyond the typical odours, reminded her of another task that required completion before she headed for her train. She was so fatigued and rushed that it had almost slipped her mind. Margot spun quickly on her heel and eyed the three brown paper bags on the counter. She always ate lunch at the hospital cafeteria but she could not let Roy and the boys go hungry, and preparing their meals had become a regular part of her morning rituals - so had distributing those meals.

  She stared anxiously at her watch again. Did she have enough time? She did not want to miss her train and have to taxi it to work again. That seemed to be becoming a bad habit, and an expensive one at that. She wanted to consider setting her alarm a few minutes early, but she was already running on empty with the little amount of sleep that she got. She was not sure if she could physically function on anything less.

  With a restrained whine, Margot approached the counter where the bags sat. That was when she noticed that she had left the plastic container open with the remnants of that day’s meal. She glanced in without thinking or pausing to hold her breath, and the stench of it gave her the dry heaves, like rancid rotting meat. Trying not to look at the greyish gelatinous mass inside, she hastily popped the cover on top and securing it with an exaggerated push, swept the container off the counter and hurriedly shoved it onto the middle shelf of the refrigerator, placing it in between two other containers with similar proportions and quivering gray contents. One of the other containers still bore a medical biological waste sticker that Margot had forgotten to remove. She rotated the container clockwise, turning the side with the sticker towards the wall of the fridge and away from view.

  From behind the closed office door, Margot heard Roy groan.

  “Just a minute, honey,” she called. “The boys come first – you know the drill.”

  Margot was tempted to scoop up the bags and make her rounds, but the brown paper would often leak, and the last time she had made the mistake of doing that, she had left a foul-smelling stain on her business attire. If that happened again, she would be forced to go and change, and then she would certainly not make her train. She leaned over and grasped the lunch bags cautiously by their rolled up tops, careful not to allow anything to drip off them onto her clothing.

  Plastic would be better to avoid spillage, she knew, but the fact was that she would likely never see any containers handed off to Roy or the boys ever again, which would mean constantly buying new ones, while the old ones, rank, fetid and growing mould, would pile up in some corner, forgotten in a closet or lost behind a piece of furniture. That much had not changed over time. Brown paper bags would remain the method of choice.

  As Margot had just finished telling Roy, the boys were first in line. It was a mother’s prerogative to put the well-being of her offspring before that of her spouse. She approached the door tentatively, with their two bags in her left hand, and Roy’s in her right. She crept closer, trying to quiet her breathing, and pressed her ear against the door. All she could hear was her heart thudding loudly in her chest. That did not necessarily mean that they were not there. They were less mindless than one might expect of a typical teenage boy, as much as that surprised Margot. They could still be clever, when they really wanted to be. That, she assumed, was because they were Roy’s children. Her husband had always been smart as a whip, whereas she had always been forced to muddle her way through things, improvising as necessary.

  Margot realized that she did not have the time to stand there and waffle over whether or not they might be lurking behind the door, waiting to jump out at her. She steeled herself, unlocking the basement door and making as little noise as possible in the process. Cringing, she swung the door wide, and dropped the two paper bags onto the top step. Before she had even released the rolled paper tops, she heard a loud moan coming from below, and a scratching, dragging noise that almost made her jump out of her skin. Without hesitating, she slammed the door shut and fumbled with the lock. She managed to finally get it to click back into place just as something thudded against the opposite side of the door.

  Margot took three staggering steps backwards and pressed herself up against the hallway wall for comfort. She was breathing heavily, still startled, and she clutched at her chest. Closing her eyes, she waited a few moments, listening to the sound of grunting and shifting on the other side of the door, before her muscles began to relax again, and her thoughts began to calm.

  She was saddened a little by the fact that she had not been able to tell if it was Hayden or Wesley that she had heard. Not that seeing the boy would have provided her with any more information. Her sons, as they had aged, had grown to look so alike that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. One would never be able to guess that Hayden was the older of the two, and Wesley the younger. The one shocking time that she had seen them both at the same time lately, side by side, they could have been identical twins. The
only thing that had differentiated them was the way that Wesley slouched a touch more on the left side, and drooled a little, but then again, he always had.

  “Enjoy, boys,” Margot called through the door.

  She wanted to press a hand to the door, as a gesture of endearment, but her fingers were still trembling too much to allow her to do so.

  “I have to see to your father next and then I’ll be going,” she said. “I’ll see if I can pick something up for you both while I’m gone.”

  Margot was met with silence, which was their own form of gratitude, she guessed. She did not understand them anymore, but she had not since they had hit puberty. They had often been sullen and silent. Roy tended to be much more vocal about things, especially if he liked something. The boys were a quiet pair – shy and reserved. That might have been why they had adapted to living in the basement so quickly. That was also why she did not miss their presence the way that she did with Roy.

  With only one bag left to go, Margot headed for the back door. Roy’s office window overlooked the yard there and was open a couple of inches and covered over with metal bars. Roy had insisted just after they had moved in, after word had gotten around the neighbourhood that there had been a couple of violent break-ins in the area, that they bar all of the windows in the house, including the one for his office. They did not, after all, live in the best of locations. Sure, it would look ugly, he had argued, but it would keep them secure, and he considered that much more important than appearances.

  That judgement call had proven to be very useful, considering their current circumstances. Margot could safely leave that window open twenty-four/seven, without worrying about anyone or anything getting in or out. That was important with Roy being cooped up in there all day long. The air in the office had gotten stale and rancid, and having the window open allowed the air to circulate, making it a little more breathable. It also left enough of a gap to suit Margot’s purposes.

  She leaned down and grasped the handle of the pool hook. They could never have afforded a pool, but she had bought it when she had recognized the necessity for it. Margot entwined the paper bag in the cording on the end and slipped it in between the bars, sliding it in through the open window. There was a tug on the other end, a rather strong one, and Margot responded by giving the pool hook a good shake. It took a couple of minutes of jostling, but eventually Margot managed to pull it free, leaving the bag behind with Roy.

  Unhappily lowering the unwieldy pole to the ground again, Margot crouched for a few seconds, listening to the sounds that emerged from the open window. Time was wasting, but this was the closest thing to quality time that she had with her husband nowadays. There was a lot of shuffling, tearing and slurping. Those noises were followed by a string of hungry lamentations, and only one word could be heard clearly.

  “Braaaaiiiins.”

  “Still vocal,” Margot murmured, “But not so loquacious, my dear.”

  His vocabulary really had gone downhill.

  She hovered there for a few more moments, and then forced herself to turn back towards the back door.

  “I’ve got to go to work now, honey,” she yelled to him, a fair distance from his window. “They have me working a long shift today. Don’t wait up for me, okay. I’ll be home late. It is budget season, and you know what that means. I’ll be buried up to my eyeballs in paperwork.”

  Roy moaned.

  “I appreciate the sympathy,” Margot chuckled. “But it would be even nicer if you could help out around here. There’s only so much that one woman can do by herself, you know.”

  With a soft whimper, and a pained look at the barred window, she re-entered the house.

  She was fortunate, she thought, as she headed for the kitchen again, that she worked for a hospital. The salary was not the greatest, but there were other perks. She could keep her three men fed and somewhat content, thanks to the availability of what they needed to survive, and it just happened to be found where she was employed. They never needed to leave home as a result, and that was important. It had been that way for the last three months, and she was adapting, gradually. It had taken some creativity and some manoeuvring to get things into place and functioning smoothly, but she had tackled the problem head on and come up with solutions. Margot was a good problem-solver.

  There were times that she did feel guilty about stealing from her workplace, but she had come up with several means of justifying what she did, to make herself feel better. The things that she took were in the process of being discarded. Nobody would miss them, and it did no harm. It was something that they did not want, and something that she needed. Why let it go to waste?

  There was also the fact that they had taken advantage of her for years, getting her to work unpaid overtime, knowing that her entire family depended on her salary. The threat of being replaced by someone who better matched their education requirements had always loomed over her. It had been an intimidation tactic on their part and it had been an effective one. Her family had paid the price in the past, missing out on her time and her presence. Well, now she was recouping that loss through her own efforts, in the form of containers filled with gray gelatinous material and bearing biological waste stickers.

  She picked up her briefcase from the table with a sigh. She had been working late on the night that people had started turning. It was a disease, they had said. It was a virus that reacted with people on a genetic level, killing their regular biological functions, but then resuscitating them in some ways, with reduced capabilities, a lack of comprehension and social awareness, and very peculiar urges. The doctors and scientists had said that their brains had begun degrading, faster than their bodies, and that was why they were craving brain matter in particular. It only affected about twenty-five percent of the population, who possessed a specific genetic mutation. That was a mutation, however, that Roy had had, and one that he had passed down to his sons. Margot, on the other hand, had been spared.

  There had been mass hysteria at first, because those who were sick...those who became zombies, were violent and voracious. There were mass killings before the government had brought things somewhat under control. The government solution? Kill them all, for the sake of national security and the safety of the general populace.

  There had been a few stragglers who had escaped the genetic cleansing, and those were the ones who had been smarter before they had turned. They still roamed cities and towns searching for new victims. That was why all citizens were now allowed to arm themselves in any way that they deemed would be effective against the zombies. It was necessary, for their own protection.

  There were also those who had turned who escaped the cleansing because they had someone like Margot, someone willing to lock them away, to keep them safe, someone willing to shelter them, and see to their every need. They were, after all, still family.

  Margot had been surreptitious, keeping up appearances for neighbours and co-workers. If anyone suspected what had happened to her family, they would send a cleansing team to the house, and she certainly could not have that. She loved her husband and her boys. She did not want anyone trying to take them away from her.

  If anyone asked her about them, Roy’s writing had supplied them with enough money to send their sons to private school, and what good mother would not want to provide her children with the best education possible. Margot also had started writing on her lunch hours and the weekends, trying to mimic Roy’s style as much as possible and offering her stories up to his agent as his latest works. Her first few pieces had been rejected outright, but Margot felt like she was starting to catch on and the agent had been very pleased with her latest endeavours. He had even commented that it was nice to see that Roy had finally overcome whatever trauma he had been suffering from as a result of the turning event and that it was especially good to see that he was back to his old self. He also suggested that it was about time that Roy finished up the sequel to his break through novel. Margot was not sure if she could manage that
, on top of everything else that she had been forced to deal with.

  Margot heard Roy’s noisy lamentations begin anew. She had been lost in thought, not something that she could really afford at the moment. She had to get to work, or there would be trouble.

  Margot glanced at her watch and gave a stifled gasp. She could still make it to her train, if she ran.

  She scanned the kitchen one more time, and found what she was looking for, perched behind the inside door. She had installed a strap on it, making it easier for her to carry when she was on her way to work, with her hands otherwise full. Despite being a sympathizer, Margot was not immune to a straggler’s attacks, and what she sometimes carried with her served as extra bait. She could not allow herself to be vulnerable. Her family was depending on her.

  She slung the shotgun over one shoulder, hoisted her briefcase beneath her other arm, and grabbed her travel mug and granola bar from the table.

  “Bye!” she hollered over Roy’s groans. “I’m off!”

  Then she bumped the door open with her butt, pushing her way outside as she whistled her favourite Tori Amos tune, “Happiness is a Warm Gun.”

  ***

  To find out more about Chantal Boudreau, please visit her blog at

  http://chantellyb.wordpress.com/2012/10/31/my-favourite-monsters-a-z-zombie/

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  Laura Bretz

  What Zombies Fear:

  The Ballad of Ryan Fullerton

  To Kirk: Thank you for being the kick-in-the-pants I need when the going gets rough. Thank you for your endless encouragement and inspiration. I couldn’t do this without you.

  To our readers: I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to be the Maxists. You absolutely rock and you’re what keep us going.

  This one’s for you.

  Chapter 1

  Ryan was finishing up a session with one of his favorite students, Donte Jackson, when his cell phone rang on his desk. He’d been the guidance counselor at Bristol High School for just over two years, and in that time he’d trained everyone he knew not to call his cell phone during school hours.