"What's that, Carl?"

"We talked it over, and if you ever need any help keeping your house in good order----a paint job, new roof, whatever---don't hesitate, eh? We owe you."

The lid shut. Mike latched it.

Later, he found himself whistling as he shoveled on the dirt.

The Basement

WILLIAM T. VANDEMARK

Julie screams. She's in the kitchen.

I'm in the basement stacking canned goods next to bottled water. I glance up at a barred window. Outside, misshapen figures shuffle past. I drop a case of Dinty Moore and run to the stairs.

"Get down here," I yell. "Right now, or we're dead!"

Julie opens the door. She stands at the top of the stairs, pale with fear. She is claustrophobic. Yesterday, the idea of seeking refuge in a dank basement terrified her more than televised reports of zombies. This morning, the TV signal died.

Glass breaks----a picture window's timbre.

I take the stairs two at a time and grab Julie.

I pull, but she won't let go of the door jam. Behind her, a wreck of a body appears. From its face, tendrils of skin hangs like a spider's web. The zombie, teeth sharp and broken, lunges at Julie. I yank at her, slam the door, throw the deadbolt.

A voice howls. Fingernails scratch at the door. The scrabble gives way to pounding.

I hit the door back. "Hah, you bastard. No way in."

And no way out. I turn to Julie, who clutches one hand with the other.

"It's okay," I say. "We'll just wait 'till they go."

I take her hands in mine. They're warm and wet----slick, even; the top joint of her index finger has been severed.

I swallow hard, resisting the urge to vomit. "Please tell me I did that with the door."

She rocks back and forth. "I don't know." Tears roll down her cheeks. They spatter on the floor with drops of blood.

~

Hair unkempt, Julie sits on the floor, rocking; her jeans dark with stains. Ropes bind her wrists and ankles to bolts lagged in the cinderblock wall.

With an X-acto knife, I slice my thumb and drip blood onto a sponge. I take the sponge to her cracked lips.

The whites of her eyes bulge like boiled eggs. As I paint her lips red, she shies away. Suddenly, I'm greeted with her amazing azure irises, the highlight of my day. For a moment she looks at me. I reach out, but stop. She's trying to draw me in.

I'm under no illusion. If she had the chance, she'd sink her teeth into my Adam's apple.

She licks her lips, her eyes roll upwards; the azure disappears as she looks into the top of her skull. She moans and her head lolls. Blindly, she snatches at air. Ropes tighten.

~

Outside, the world has fallen apart. My radio hisses static.

Inside, sinew and bindings still hold.

Time crawls, the world whispers, floorboards creak. All the while, the door thumps like an arrhythmia.

On good days, when Julie moans, I close my eyes and remember the times when such sounds came from other primal desires.

On bad days, I lean forward. Ever closer. Waiting for her hot breath to splash across my throat.

Working Man's Burden

DAVID C. PINNT

Harold knew things were about to go cock-eyed when Betty 248 stuffed the chicken guts in her mouth.

He sat up on his stool and flicked off the Mossberg's safety. The rest of the Z-crew, Betties and Barneys they called them in the break room, continued to work the eviscerating carousel, shoulders slumped and jumpsuits sagging, hands moving slowly but efficiently as the chicken carcasses rotated on the hooks. Grabbing the breast with the left hand, right plunging into the gut slit and a quick pull and tug, dropping the offal to the stainless steel mesh. Heart, gizzard, and liver, onto the conveyor and the rest down the trough to the waste bins. The regulators implanted in the backs of their skulls, leads burrowing into their shriveling limbic systems, winked green, a slow happy cadence to a shift boss like Harold.

But Betty 248, he'd been watching her close anyway. So new she hardly looked dead, flesh sagging just a bit on her face, deep circles under her eyes. She'd been in the line three, four days? Soon enough her skin would take on a gray, waxy sheen and eventually, despite the hosing down with chlorine each night, it would break open. Dark, dry tissue, the blood long clotted. The sores opened at the knuckles first, then the elbows. Harold knew the repetitive motion---hour after hour gutting the chickens---was just too much for the dead flesh to bear.

Harold swung off the stool and edged around the carousel to see her face. The other crew kept at their jobs, jaws slack, weight tilting from side to side, their various numbers stenciled large across their backs and small over the left breast. The chickens, gleaming white skin still oozing droplets of blood from the defeatherer, swayed on the carousel. Emaciated fingers in rubber gloves grabbed, twisted, pulled, and separated.

On the far side of the carousel Harold stooped, a ratcheting pop sounding off in his left knee. Sure as shit, Betty 248 had a crimson smear across her cheek where she'd crammed the guts into her mouth. The other Z-crew stared straight at the carcasses or worked with eyes closed, but 248's sunken orbs rolled left and right and Harold fancied he could hear a high keening rising from her smeared lips.

He jacked a shell into the Mossberg and thumbed open his radio. "This is Harold in EVR-4... I've got a situation. Send a crew down." Maybe his voice tipped her over or the chewed entrails hitting the desiccated, empty stomach, but Betty 248's regulator failed for certain. She yanked a carcass off its hook, ripped out a mouthful of pearlescent flesh, and turned on the Barney next to her, yellowed teeth gnawing the side of his face, latex-tipped fingers raking his cheap cotton jumpsuit.

Holy shit," Harold flicked the radio open again. "Right now! I need a crew right now!"

The Barney, 109 on his chest, shuffled sideways his regulator working fine, still trying to gut the chicken before him, as Betty 248---shrieks rising in her throat---slavered and chewed at his neck. Harold crab-walked under the carousel, keeping one eye on the Z-crew, not knowing if the fracas would overload their regulators too. His boots squelched on the wet floor, stray clumps of feathers and gobbets of meat in the treads.

Betty 248 ripped off Barney 109's ear, shriveled gray flesh on a zombie so old. The wound lay purple black under the harsh fluorescents.

With one economical step Harold slipped behind the pair, socketed the Mossberg's barrel at the base of the Betty's skull, just below her regulator---now amber---and pulled the trigger. The top of Betty 248's skull vaporized, bone, hair and brain splattering across the carousel, the Z-crew and the chickens. Her body dropped to ground, head gone from the nose up, jumpsuit collar smoldering. Barney 109 turned back to the carousel, left hand twitching for the next chicken.

Levi and two rustlers banged into the evisceration room. The rustlers held lollysticks, steel tubes six feet long, a wire loop at the far end and a shank handle at the other to pull the loop tight. Pistol-gripped Mossbergs hung over their shoulders, barrel down.

Levi took in the scene, Barney 109's gaping head, Betty 248's still lump on the floor, and hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. One of the rustlers slapped the red kill switch by the door, shutting down the assembly line, chickens jerked and swayed on their hooks and the Z-crew stopped, limp.