Tricks and Treats

Occasionally, I'll post short fiction or poetry here and if all goes well, perhaps even a novel excerpt one day.

What Cannot Be Undone, Cannot Be Erased
By Damien Walters Grintalis

Some people swore the house was haunted.

From the outside, it appeared like the other houses on the block--a construction of brick, shingles, and glass. The lawn, a neat expanse of green, held no weeds, debris, or anything else to mar its surface, save for a For Sale sign tucked neatly in one corner.

On the inside, fresh paint covered the walls; new carpet covered the floors. A sunroom looked out onto a wide back yard, a yard perfect for a dog. The family room conjured images of popcorn and movies and laughter.

But the walls held the old memories too tight, and when people came to view the house, it pushed its secrets out and filled the people with a quiet sense of dread. They left with tight smiles on their faces, promising to call the real estate agent. They never did.

Though the world had forgotten, the house did not want to forget that underneath the paint and plaster, the walls bore the impression of a fist, and underneath the carpet, stains darkened the wood.

A shame, a pity, the neighbors had said, and then their thoughts turned to cookouts and picnics and back to school shopping. The newspaper had run the story and the subsequent updates for a time; eventually there were new tragedies to report and new names to print.

It was easier to forget than to remember. But not for the house.

In one upstairs bedroom, an empty crib sat against the wall. No one had the heart to remove it from the room, not the real estate agent, nor the painters, nor the cleaning service that kept the house free of dust, although none of them ever knew the child who used to sleep beneath a mobile of painted stars. A child who would never learn to walk.

But the house remembered. The house remembered everything. So it sat, held its horrors tight, and waited, a pretty thing of flower boxes and shutters on the outside; a broken hole where happiness used to live on the in.

Some people swore the house was haunted.

They were right.


Guts and Then Some
By Damien Walters Grintalis

Tom lifted his rifle and took out the skinny one with the straggly beard first. Boom. Splat. The head exploded into a rainbow of pink and grey and white and red. The others didn’t flinch, didn’t move away, just kept stumbling around with their shuffling steps. The skinny one staggered forward two steps before he collapsed, legs still twitching. Tom shot a fat guy missing an arm next and grinned as the body tumbled to the ground.

Even from his position, high up in the trees, Tom couldn’t escape the stink of rotting flesh--the ripe roadkill smell creeping out from their skin. Creeping into everything. The bandana tied over his mouth couldn’t hold it out. The taste stuck in the back of his throat, a thick, slimy mouthful of blood and bone and offal.

An old woman wearing a bloodstained nightgown stepped into Tom’s line of sight and boom. Gone, baby, gone.

The last he’d heard, the government was still spouting off about containment camps for the walking dead. A bunch of useless political whitewashing. The situation had spiraled out of control. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that a bullet to the head remained the only solution. Why the hell the armed forces weren’t out doing the same thing, Tom didn’t know.

A car raced down the street, all stinking exhaust and shrieking tires. It spun around, knocking a bunch of the dead around like bowling pins. Then the gas tank gave up its last bit of fuel, and the engine sputtered out. The dead got back up, of course, (mangled limbs didn’t stop them one bit) and shuffled closer to the car. Tom took them out one by one. He shook his head when the car doors opened and two men hit the ground running, their legs moving in a crazy burst of panic.

It didn’t take long for the dead to take them down and shred their guts to ribbons. Tom couldn’t get to them all in time. Screams ripped through the air while the dead gibbered and moaned, flinging ropes of intestines around like streamers in a macabre parade. Tom aimed and fired over and over again, his ears ringing from the shots.

Brains? Bullshit. The dead liked the soft parts best.

Until the government pulled its head out of its ass and took real action, Tom would stay in the trees and take out as many of the walking dead as he could. When he ran out of ammo for the rifle, or when they finally figured out his position, he had one bullet tucked away for himself in his Glock. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that point, but he wouldn’t let them eat him to death. No fucking way.

Two of the dead fought over a leg ripped from its socket, the bone a shocking shade of white underneath the blood. Tom lifted his rifle, aimed, and fired.

Another one down. A million or so to go.