Free APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead by K Helms

smell that was not as sweet. There should not be anyone here. She had been the only living relative and she worried that the Lifetime movie she had watched the night before had come true.
    “Hello?” she asked, her voice wavering as she began to step back toward the front of the house.
    Heather listened, but the only response was a groan.
    She peered into the blinding white of the deep snow that hung heavily from tree limbs in that part of the yard. There at the back corner of the house she saw a form staggering toward her.
    “Who’s there?” she asked again, and again came the groan.
    Heather stepped down from the porch and walked slowly toward the silhouetted figure. The dark figure was skinny and hunched over. She could see the material of a dress billowing behind her. “Grandma?” she asked with her heart racing. She knew it couldn’t be her grandmother; the woman had been buried three days ago.
    There was another groan, louder this time. It sounded almost like a question, but what had it asked?
    Heather cautiously made her way slowly toward the woman, but when the form began to stagger forward Heather stopped, filled with an unnatural fear. She felt the wind picking up and it blew down the neck of her coat. She shivered, unable to move as she watched the figure move clumsily toward her.
    The figure weaved left to right, lunging forward and as she emerged from the shadows of the house and into the light of the sun, Heather saw her Grandma. Her Grandma reached out to her and Heather saw the old woman’s hands. It appeared that every finger of her hands had been broken and splayed out in odd angles like the branches of a bush; the skin of her hands was hanging in ripped tatters that blew in the wind.
    “Oh my God…Grandma…what did they do to you?” Heather whispered and began to cry.
    Her grandma moaned and it sounded to Heather like she was calling her name.
    Heather’s paralysis broke and she ran to her grandma. Grandma clawed at the air as Heather came forward, her motions becoming more and more enthusiastic and frantic with each step. Heather threw her arms around her grandmother’s neck and squeezed her tightly, almost knocking the elderly lady backwards. Heather could feel the broken fingers on her back, sliding up her neck.
                  “Oh Grandma…let’s get you in the house and warmed up, you’re freezing” she said, tears streaming from her eyes. She heard her grandmother groan again. To her, it said that her grandmother loved her and when her grandma’s jaws distended into a lion’s maw her dentures fell out of her mouth and into the snow. She gnawed into Heather’s soft neck and tried to rip chunks of flesh from her granddaughter’s throat. Heather tried to pull away, but the old woman set her jaws. They squeezed together clamping both sides of her neck and pinched off the blood flow of her carotid arteries and jugular veins. Her peripheral vision began closing in, fading to black as she struggled to remain conscious.
    Tears streamed down her cheeks as she grew weaker and weaker. She lacked the strength to fight off the old woman and she silently cursed the slothful rituals that had stolen her strength and left her a bloated remnant of who she used to be. Her grandma’s jaws squeezed harder, compressing her windpipe and she couldn’t catch her breath. Above her she saw Orion sparkling in the night sky… but it wasn’t night was it? Heather’s vision blurred and she thought that she saw him release his bow. She felt a piercing pain in her soft belly as jagged fingernails tore into her flesh. Fingers hooked into her intestines, pulling them free from the red warmth within. Heather was faintly aware that she could see steam rising before her, and her oxygen starved brain wondered if the Hunter had hit his mark this time or would he circle the planet again, still searching for his prey.  The stars sparkled then disappeared, sparkled and disappeared. She wondered why