FEAST OF THE DEAD

Okay peoples, I noted in a blog just a few beneath this one that Static Movement had just released their FALL SHUDDERS anthology. Included is my story, “Feast of the Dead.” Here’s a brief excerpt of the story. Hope you like it and pick up a copy of the anthology!


It was still All Hallows Eve.

The world had started to fade back in again.

A blurry spiral. Dizziness and pain. Jena’s cheek hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. Hell, if it wasn’t dark and she had a makeup mirror, she would have seen a big black and blue mark spread out on the side of her face. Nate had walloped her good.

Bastard, came the thought through her addled brain and pain.

Her vision began to clear and she saw them. Two dozen or so. Weirdo freakazoids. All dressed up in dirty white burlap sacks, their faces painted over with dirt or ash or…what had Nate said?...oh yeah, charcoal.

Jena chuckled. Soft, painful.

A bunch of freaky looking scarecrows they were. A bunch a back country bumpkins clamoring around at the edge of the cemetery. A big bonfire hissed and crackled, spread a dim orange light through the little cemetery.

Yeah, Hallowe’en.

Long shadows faded into the night.

And that prick, Nate Warwick, was right in there with those weirdo freakazoids all decked out in charcoal painted face and dirty white burlap.

Goofy bastard!

“You son-of-a-bitch!” Jena shouted, then winced. Damn, her face hurt.

About that time she realized she was strung up on a wooden pole. Arms outstretched over her head, wrists bound by a rope. Feet barely touched the ground. And stark naked as a jaybird in front of God, country, and two dozen plus weirdo freakazoids.

Kinda dawned on her right then and there when she started to go after Nate. The rope went taunt, hauled her ass back. The back of her head bounced off the pole with an audible thud.

“Shit!” she growled.

Eyes squinted.

More pain.

Saw stars.

Now her cheek and the back of her head hurt. Vision blurred a bit, but cleared fast.

Saw some silly bitch in a scarecrow getup doing the eye of newt, bat’s blood, frog’s tail thing in some big bowl on the stand. There was a fire crackling in that bowl, and smoke rolled out, smelled funny. Like a drug or something. The silly bitch started talking some strange bullshit, like a witch doing the bubble bubble toil and trouble routine.

Then the rest; they started the same droning nonsense. Only Nate wasn’t joining in their merry festivities.

Or was he?

He started toward Jena. His eyes were narrowed, glassy.

Sniffing the smoke out of that bowl most likely.

“About time you stopped this nonsense,” Jena growled as Nate approached. “Untie me from this…”

It was about then that Jena got a whiff of that smoke wafting from that bowl. Sent her thoughts spiraling. Kind of a cool spiral though. Real freaky. Like she was doing coke or crank or something. Wow!

Everything suddenly turned surreal. The scene seemed to swim, distort. Time slowed. Jena chuckled as she turned her gaze to Nate. He stood there; he had dropped his burlap, and looked like he was about ready to rock and roll Jena’s world.

“Wow baby!” she suddenly cackled.

Nate reached up, grabbed Jena, and spun her around; jacked her up face first against the pole. Then hiked her legs and took it to her hard, deep, and slow in rhythm to the weirdo freakazoids yaking their nonsense.

Jena squealed, and laughed, and gasped. The drug coursed through her lungs, her thoughts, her brain.

“…fertility rite...,” she heard Nate growl softly into her ear.