But he was down. Down beside the Sweet Marie. Down inside the fire, inside the ticking clock with a deadly alarm and only moments-maybe seconds, probably only seconds-before the whole town went up in flames.
At the last moment he remembered the clasp that anchored the ship. He unhitched it. He limped bloodily to the back port and ripped the hydrogen hose out of the back, and shut it up tight because otherwise he’d just leak his fuel all over North Mexico.
He fumbled for the latch and found it.
Pulled it.
Opened the door and hauled himself inside, feeling around for the controls and seeing them awash with the yellow-gold light of the fire just outside the window. The starter was a lever on the dash. He pulled that too and the ship began to rise. He grasped for the thrusters and his shaking, searching fingers found them, and pressed them-giving the engines all the gas they’d take. Anything to get him up and away. Anything to push him past the hydrogen before the fire took it.
Anything.
Reluctance slipped away below, and behind. It shimmered and the whole world froze, and gasped, and shook like a star being born.
The desert floor melted into glass.
Arlene Schabowski of the Undead by Mark McLaughlin & Kyra M. Schon
Mark McLaughlin’s fiction, poetry, and articles have appeared in hundreds of magazines and anthologies, including Cemetery Dance, Midnight Premiere, and The Year’s Best Horror Stories. His most recent story collections are Raising Demons for Fun and Profit and Twisted Tales for Sick Puppies. His first novel, Monster Behind the Wheel (coauthored with Michael McCarty), was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award. His next book will be Vampires & Sex Kittens, a collection of essays.
Kyra M. Schon is the actress who played Karen Cooper, the trowel-wielding zombie girl in the basement in the original Night of the Living Dead. Since 1985, she has made her living teaching pottery and sculpture, and she also sells unique zombie memorabilia through her website, www.ghoulnextdoor.com.
In 1939, audiences at The Wizard of Oz were dazzled to see a black-and-white movie burst out into full Technicolor, when Dorothy departs gray Kansas and arrives in the magical land of Oz, and black-and-white has been battling it out with color ever since. In the 1998 film Pleasantville, twins are transported into a black-and-white 1950s-era sitcom, and as they slowly liberate the town from its oppressive staidness, residents who have broken the mold become fully colorized. In the recent video game The Saboteur, the hero moves through black-and-white cityscapes in World War II-era occupied France attempting to disrupt Nazi plans-if he’s successful, color is restored to liberated areas.
In the world of zombies, of course, the most epic confrontation of black-and-white versus color is the showdown between George Romero’s original 1968 black-and-white classic Night of the Living Dead and the 1990 full-color remake directed by makeup man Tom Savini. Devotees of the original will emphasize its classic status and the haunting quality of its stark black-and-white look, whereas advocates for the remake will point to its sophisticated makeup effects and stronger female characters.
Like zombies themselves, the debate just keeps on going, relentless. Our next story also features a clash between black-and-white and color. Child stars often seem to grow up to lead troubled lives, but seldom as troubled as this.
Really? Right now?
Okay.
Let me tell you about a nice lady, who lives not too far from here. She was in the movie. And still is, in a way.
Her name is Lorraine Tyler…and also Arlene Schabowski. Lorraine is in her early forties, though you couldn’t tell by looking at her. She has long, wavy blonde hair. Arlene is nine years old, and she has long, wavy blonde hair, too. Most people would agree that she looks quite dead.
Lorraine played Arlene, all those years ago. Lorraine stopped, but Arlene kept right on playing.
After the zombies swarmed the building, Arlene devoured most of her parents…they were hers, so she certainly deserved the best parts…and then simply wandered off into the night. And the night was filled with shambling, ravenous corpses, feasting upon the flesh of the living. But the undead knew she was one of them, so she was safe from their hunger. Her body held no warmth, no nourishing spark of life to entice the other zombies. That was the last the viewers ever saw of her.
But she needed food, for she was… and still is… always hungry. Deliriously hungry. For there is a deep black coldness within her that constantly needs filling. Sometimes, right after she has eaten, she actually feels alive again. Perhaps even better than alive. She felt that way after she ate her parents, and she wanted to feel it again. So she wandered through the woods, through the darkness, until she came to another farmhouse.
Now at this point, one might ask, “They never showed what happened to the little girl after she wandered off. Didn’t the police get her when they came and shot all the zombies’ brains out?”
Obviously not.
One might also wonder: “Fear-Farm of the Undead was only a movie, wasn’t it?”
Well, yes and no.
Lorraine Tyler’s father was one of the producers and stars of the movie, which was made on a shoe-string budget. The money her family put into that movie back then wouldn’t even buy a decent new car these days. Her father, mother and some of their friends wanted to make a movie, so they pooled their resources, found a few more investors and did it. And Lorraine got to play a little girl who gets bitten, turns into a zombie and eats her parents.
Lorraine went on to become a school teacher with a cool website selling Fear-Farm memorabilia. Teachers get time off during the summer, so she started going to conventions, meeting fans, doing a lot more to promote her memorabilia sideline. She did that for years. Made good money, too. Last year she made enough to buy a nice little vacation in Mexico.
People still watch that movie all the time. Still think about it. Fear-Farm of the Undead has spawned hundreds of knock-off versions, most of them released direct-to-video. And Lorraine has watched every one of them. Because she is also Arlene Schabowski, and wants to know what other zombies are doing.
Somewhere out there, it is always night, and a little dead girl who is also a living school teacher is always hungry.
Anyway. Back to that other farmhouse.
Arlene could hear cows mooing in the distance. The sound made her hungry. She crept up to the house and looked in the window, into a quaint, tidy living room, with knickknacks on little cherrywood tables and furniture draped with lace doilies. An old woman was sitting at her desk, reading some papers. She had long white hair and wore a dark gray housecoat. Of course, everything in that world is black and white or shades of gray, just like in the movie. The old woman must not have turned on the radio or the TV that day or night… she looked so peaceful, it was clear she had no idea what was going on.
The little dead girl went to the front door and knocked. The old woman called out, as cheery as can be, “Who is it?”
Now, none of the other zombies in that movie were able to talk. All they ever did was grunt and roar and squeal. But Arlene was able to think really hard and call upon the abilities of her other self, Lorraine. And she managed to rasp out the three-word phrase from the movie for which she is best known. She also says a four-word phrase early in the movie, but most folks don’t remember that. No, they only remember what she says just before she turns into a zombie: “Help me, Mommy.”
“Mommy? I’m nobody’s mommy!” the old woman cried. “Who’s out there? Is this some kind of a joke?” So saying, she threw open the door. “My God! Little girl, are you hurt? There’s blood all over you!”