Free Doomware by Nathan Kuzack

its arms were clearly visible as it flailed about helplessly.
    David watched in a kind of stupor, feeling vaguely aghast. So Everard was a rapist. He didn’t know why he should be surprised. Everard stomped around with a permanent erection; it stood to reason he’d put to it use. Besides, rape was nothing compared to what they were capable of. As if he’d just read his mind, Everard grabbed a handful of the other zombie’s hair, yanked its head back and bit into the side of its neck. The zombie snarled and cried out, though not in pain. It was curiously like watching two big cats mating. But there it was: the thing that made them so despicable, that had cemented in his mind his view of them as zombies, as “thing” or “it” rather than “he” or “she”.
    Their desire for human flesh.
    He guessed it was a primitive instinct, a residue of their former lives, that drove them to seek out sustenance, and with the morphers out of commission they had turned to a food source that was in such plentiful supply it was unavoidable: the dead. The dead and each other, which were essentially the same thing.
    He’d resisted the notion of calling them zombies at first. They didn’t exactly fit the description of zombies he had in his imagination, and, besides, zombies were for B-moviemakers and superstitious believers in the occult. But what else could you call them? “The undead” called to mind Dracula and countless other vampire tales; “revenants” smacked of a grandeur they didn’t possess and certainly didn’t deserve; “walking corpses” was two syllables too long.
    He went through to the living room and put some music on before making himself a coffee in the kitchen. The cat mewed for food, but was only trying its luck; it wasn’t feeding time yet.
    As he drank, he thought about the zombies. If sexual intercourse was going on between them – rape or otherwise – would they fall pregnant? No child licences were being issued now, but would that make a blind bit of difference anyway? What about women who’d been pregnant when the virus struck, and had gone on to become zombies? It didn’t bear thinking about. He’d yet to see a pregnant zombie and he prayed he never would.
    When he returned to the bedroom window an hour later there was no sign of Everard or the other zombie.
    * * *
    His mind active with thoughts about his failure with the gun, he lay awake in bed that night for a long time.
    Eventually he drifted into sleep that was shallow and restless, waking long before dawn with an erection so persistent and bothersome that he masturbated himself just to be rid of it.
    Afterwards he fell almost at once into a deep and dream-filled slumber.

CHAPTER 9
D

    Her eyes somehow managed to look vacant and hate-filled at the same time. He’d never seen such a look on his mother’s face – nor on anybody’s face. He staggered backwards, away from her, grabbing at the hands around his neck. She went with him, her mouth half open to reveal the pristine white enamel of her teeth, her eyes gleaming like two sapphires set in a bloodless face. He tried to prise her hands away, but it was no use; the amount of force he was using was too small. He was trying not to harm her, regardless of the fact that she wouldn’t feel it if he did. Virus or no virus, she still looked like his mother, and he couldn’t harm her. He couldn’t .
    Bracing himself, apologising to her mentally, he pulled forcefully on her arms. They came away, but instantly they latched onto his tie and pulled downwards, cinching the silk tightly around his neck like a hangman’s noose, her strength aided by gravity and the weight of her body. For a second he was too stunned to do anything. Then he grasped her hands. They were hard and cold like windblown stone, and clung to his tie as if it were a lifeline, her purchase on it the only thing separating her from an imminent demise. Subconsciously he cursed himself for opting to wear a tie this