Monsters by Ilsa J Bick #review

Title: Monsters (Book #3 of The Ashes Trilogy)
Author: Ilsa J Bick
Publisher: Quercus, 2013

While having read the preceding books in this trilogy may not be essential, as author Ilsa J Bick does provide character details in the front- and back-matter, this hefty tome as a standalone might prove daunting. We are presented with a large cast of characters, who have a lot of history behind them. Primarily, we follow the story arcs of Alex, who lives with a brain tumour; Chris, who’s got a bit of a thing for Alex; and Tom, an ex-soldier, who also has a bit of a thing for Alex. Herein lies the now almost standard love triangle in young adult fiction.

In addition to this trio, we also get glimpses of other viewpoints via the plucky little Ellie and the tragic Peter, among many others. This large cast of names and relationships is confusing at first, especially as Bick kicks off the novel with Alex’s near-drowning and dramatic rescue in a rapidly flooding mine. There’s no easing into things.

The story is as follows: A few months previous to the events in Monsters, there was a mysterious event referred to as the “Zap”. At the same time, most youngsters developed zombie-like tendencies to eat people. Cue the zombiepocalypse, and the few survivors embroiled in a desperate bid to remain uneaten and to make a life for themselves after the lights have gone out.

As if the existing Changed weren’t bad enough, Bick now introduces freaky evolved Changed, that seem to be under the control of someone who doesn’t have the Spared’s, as the survivors are known, best interests at heart.

Monsters is an ambitious work. The story might not appeal to squeamish readers as it often sinks into an orgy of violence and cannibalism that makes William Golding’s Lord of the Flies as tame as a Disney cartoon. The overarching narrative is also not easy to follow – chapters are short, often end with cliffhangers, and shift from character points of view at a dizzying frequency. Also, by the end, I was hoping for some revelation as to what caused the “Zap”, as well as the Changed, and I suppose I’ll have to keep wondering. It would have been nice to understand why the Changed had some of the characteristics that they did.

Granted, Monsters is filled with plenty of action which does build to a tension-filled conclusion, but getting there exhausted me, most likely due to having to familiarise myself with all the plot arcs and names. There is a lot going on – and you’re advised to read the entire series to get the most value out of this epic.

World War Z #movie #review

Okay, I have totally got a thing for post-apocalyptic stories; there's something about destroying the world as we know it and imagining how survivors will pull civilisation up by its bootstraps and begin again. Granted, post-Z stories are still pretty hot property right now, and most of my friends have been watching The Walking Dead. I've watched a bit of season #1 but to be honest, I got a bit meh halfway through. But that's just me, and I'm an odd one when it comes to TV etc. A series either grabs me by the short and curlies or I let it go just there.

A few years ago I picked up a copy of World War Z by Max Brooks. "Read that book, my friend told me. You won't regret it." So I did, and probably finished reading the entire thing within days. Wow. What a ride. Basically, the book is a fictitious collection of first-person accounts looking back at the zombie outbreak that almost wiped out the human species. This totally took the typical zombie outbreak story to another level examining the broader implications but also at human behaviour, and what makes a hero. (Sometimes the most unlikely people, according to Brooks). I'm not going to go all mushy with "triumph of the human spirt blah blah blah" but yeah... That.

So... [deep breath] Onto the film. First thing I'm going to say, the film is NOT the book. If you read the book, forget you ever read it. If you're looking for the book, you'll see a few small touches but that's it. The film is inspired by the book. In the loosest sense. Oh yes. There is Brad Pitt. And plenty of feel-good humanitarian social commentary shoe-horned in. But I don't mind either Brad or his soapbox. Because, yeah, this was a tight film.

Essentially, our protagonist, Gerry Lane, is a UN investigator who's retired, but his boss calls him into active duty when the zombie plague blooms into its full savage glory. And these zombies *are* savage. There's no slow slide into zombiefication. You get bitten and about a quarter of a minute later you've turned into a teeth-chattering, biting frenzy machine. And if you want to hold onto your grey matter, you had better RUN.

Okay, so I don't do zombie films. Yes, though I write horror, I struggle with zombie films. George A Romero does me in. Though I loved Planet Terror and Shaun of the Dead, I just couldn't sit still. Anyone suffering through a zombie movie will me will probably derive more entertainment thanks to my squirming and freaking out than the actual film.

I was in top form watching World War Z. Really. I was pretty much tap-dancing my anxiety. Yes, it's only a movie, but still... There's probably a lot wrong with the film when it comes to the screenplay. Perhaps the cyclic predictability: Gerry goes somewhere, someone does something wrong and BAM! THE ZOMBIES ARE COMING ERMAHGERD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEE!

Brad must've gotten super fit by the time he finished shooting this one. Gerry Lane spends A LOT of time running (or his extras did). Then again, I don't blame him. These are some of the nastiest zombies I've seen in cinema for a long time.

Stuff that's unlikely—like strapping magazines to your forearms to stop the damn things from biting you... I'm not sure that's fool proof but jawellnofine. To give Gerry some credit, he didn't stick around long enough to test that theory to the full.

Mostly, the horrifying fascination with watching a pandemic outbreak of zombiefication goes all the way through this story, accompanied by the claustrophobic realisation that the characters have no safe haven, nowhere they can hole up that is ultimately protected. The zombies will get there in the end.

There were times where I felt the writers laid on the "I'm doing this to save my family bit" a little too heavily but this was mitigated by the relentless pace... You just don't get time to draw breath and worry too much about the fact that the sad wife is left at home with the brood of kidlets.

My final verdict: Yes, watch this if you're looking for something that's jam-packed full of loud explosions and people who're running for their lives in a kind of macabre treasure hunt. The clock is ticking, and time is running out. That is all. World War Z is a breathless race and if you don't think too hard about the stuff that's implausible, you're in for totally satisfying entertainment. Oh, yes, and there is Brad Pitt. He might be a little older but eish, my bru, I still dig him.

Triple Shot of Zombies by Tonia Brown #review

Title: Triple Shot of Zombies
Author: Tonia Brown
Link

With “shot” being the operative word, this is exactly what you get with three short stories by Tonia Brown which feature the shuffling undead.

Naked Fear introduces us to Howard, who has serious body image issues, to the point where his therapist insists that he spends time at a nudist resort. The only problem is that he’s in the right place at the wrong time, and he’s suddenly faced with the fact that being naked is the least of his worries.

The Very Best shows how a Southern woman employs a flash of genius when it comes to dealing with a pack of soldiers. They’re not going to get that second chance to despoil all that she holds dear; it’s one of those stories you know from the outset is going to end badly for the bad guy.

The parting shot is The Worms Crawl In and our transgressor is Brandon, who pays a high price for ignoring his mother’s last wishes. Then again, the poor dear was getting a bit tired of being tied to Mom’s apron strings all the time, only he wasn’t quite expecting things to become so creepy and grisly.

Overall, Tonia Brown offers us three highly entertaining and darkly funny tales. Her style is fast-paced and it’s clear she knows the genre well. If you’re looking for a quick read that’s going to make you laugh out loud, then this is well worth it if you’re looking for a zombie fix. My only feeling is lady, you could have beefed this offering up with at least a half dozen more stories to pack more punch. I only just got started and it was over already.

Joan De La Haye's world of darkness #guest

Joan De La Haye is no stranger on my blog, and I decided to have her over again because she's recently celebrated two releases. Welcome back, Joan, tell us a bit more about your latest titles.

JDLH: My two recent releases are Requiem in E Sharp, which is a rather dark thriller set in Pretoria, and Oasis, which is a post apocalypse zombie novella also set in South Africa. They've both been published by Fox Spirit, a small indie publisher in the UK.

ND: How does Pretoria lend itself to a dark thriller?

JDLH: Being South Africa's capital city, Pretoria is full of intrigue, it's also the nations capital for all our policing screw ups. Most South African thrillers are set in either Johannesburg or Cape Town, and Pretoria is often over-looked. Which is rather sad. Pretoria has a lot of atmosphere. It also has a very high murder rate and the unit responsible for solving serial murders is stationed in Pretoria.

ND: And what makes South Africa grand fora  zombie story?

JDLH: We've already got zombies running the country, it's not much of a leap for them to take over completely. Another great thing about zombie stories is that it doesn't really matter where you set it. It won't matter where you are if there's a zombiepocalypse, they're going to get you no matter where you hide.

ND: What were some of the moments you particularly enjoyed?

JDLH: After having written Shadows and Requiem n E Sharp, which are both pretty dark and harsh, Oasis was a lot more fun. I really enjoyed writing it from Max's perspective. She wasn't as damaged as Sarah and Natalie. She's just a nice girl stuck in a really bad situation, trying to survive the end of the world. I also really enjoyed writing the twisted ending for Oasis. I got to be rather evil.
For Requiem, I really enjoyed the research part. I got to spend some time with the head of the SAPS psychology unit, which was fascinating.

ND: Can you name one or two locations in Pretoria and tell us more about what makes them lend themselves specifically to your story?

JDLH: There's an area close to where I grew up called Silverton. It's a stone throw away from the Koedoespoort train station and if the wind blows from the right direction you get a wiff from the Silverton tanneries. It's your standard lower middle class suburb where you can imagine an older woman with a drinking habit, curlers in her hair and a cigarette dangling from her mouth and wearing slippers with a hole at the big toe. It's the perfect place for my killer to stalk his victims. Most of the areas I used in Requiem in E Sharp are suburbs I knew while growing up in Pretoria or have lived in. None of them are affluent. They're places you'll find a cross section of society.

ND: And your zombies? Tell us more about what makes them tick. Are they lurkers who hang about indefinitely? Or are they rotters who slowly grow grosser and stinkier as they eventually decompose?

JDLH: My zombies are fast, filled with rage and damn ugly. They're also very hungry for human flesh. I'd say they're lurkers who just keep coming and devouring the living.

ND: And how do you define being really evil in your novels?

JDLH: I'm not sure that my novels define evil as being quite that black and white. My novels explore the very darkest of human nature as well as the demonic, but also give them a very human side. There are varying shades of dark grey and under the right circumstances the most normal of people are capable of committing the most evil of deeds. It's just a matter of finding that tipping point that will push someone far enough. Evil can be relative.

ND: And hanging out with the SAPS psychology unit. Wow! How did you go about organising that? Can you share any interesting anecdotes of that time?

JDLH: A friend of mine knew that I was doing research for Requiem and she knew Prof Gerard Labuschagne and was kind enough to put me in touch with him. He was then kind enough to read Requiem and let me know all the mistakes I'd made. When I was in his office, he asked if I was squeamish. I said, rather flipantly, "I write horror. What do you think?" He just nodded and pulled out a file with photos of dead people who'd been found in water, much like the victims in my book. Now, seeing photos of real people who were brutally murdered and left to rot in water is very different to seeing a violent movie where actors pretend to be butchered. I have a sneaky suspicion he was expecting me to freakout or be unable to look at the pictures, but I didn't freakout in fact I found them fascinating, which makes me a little worried about my own mental well being. I think I may have tendencies towards psychopathy.

ND: What's next on the cards? Care to spill the beans with regard to any upcoming or current WiPs?

JDLH: I've got a short story in an upcoming anthology called Tales from the Nun and Dragon being published by Fox Spirit. It'll be out later this month. And at the moment I'm working on a novella called The Race. It has swords and lots of blood. It also raises the question: What would you do to survive?

People can find me on my website: http://joandelahaye.com/ or follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/JoanDeLaHaye

My books are available to download on Amazon.com: Oasis and Requiem in E Sharp

Short fiction: On An Empty Shore VIII FINAL

Only Forward

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

I was stupid to think that things would last. I was a fool to imagine that I would remain the unofficial lord of the city. It had to change, and change it did. They arrived during the late afternoon so I wasn’t around to see the convoy of trucks pull in. I was so sound asleep in my lair I didn’t hear a thing but I knew things were different the moment I got up.

It wasn’t easy to pin what the difference was until I heard a diesel engine and saw the sweep of headlights as the vehicle swung down Buitengracht Street. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was an old Land Rover Defender and it had been heavily reinforced with bars over the windows and big-ass bull bars on the front. The thing was dented and dusty but there was no mistaking the power in its engines.

I got goosies just listening to the growl as it powered past.

At first I was excited. I mean, people! Strangers from upcountry! We were saved. Estelle was really happy. They were packing their things, getting the children ready when I arrived.

“They’re coming to fetch us,” she said. Her eyes were bright with tears.

That’s when it struck me. I’d be on my own again.

“Where are you going?” I asked her and tried to sound casual.

“They have a new city they’ve made, on the banks of the Orange River. There are no zombies there and they can defend it easily.”

Oh my god. That was more than a thousand kilometres away.

“Why there? Why can’t they build closer to home?” I asked.

I don’t think she picked up on my disappointment because she didn’t stop smiling. “It’s a new beginning. There’s water and the place is clean. The children will be able to play because there is a fence.”

I knew then I wouldn’t go with. I didn’t belong there. It wasn’t just the fact that the men who’d come wore military-style uniforms and carried the biggest guns I’d ever seen. I could smell it. These weren’t just survivors. These men were hard. I could see it in their eyes. They’d not ask questions about me. They wouldn't listen to explanations. They’d shoot me.

Part of me wanted to argue with Estelle but I couldn’t. I knew they’d be safer though I worried about the strangers’ motives. They were making a big deal about asking after the women and children. Why would they want the women and children?

I thought about crazy Gerrit Smuts in the Castle. He’d not wanted to open the gates, or so Estelle told me, but when he saw the strangers had bigger guns, he let them right in. I heard then they shot him. Just like that. They went in then one of the guys pulled out his pistol and shot Gerrit right between the eyes.

Then I thought about the lions, how the big males sometimes banded up and went into another male’s territory. They would fight and occasionally the rogue males drove off the older male, killed all his cubs then mated with the females.

Estelle, Betty and the kids didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Or maybe they forgot about me. I hung back when the truck came to fetch them and I think Estelle was so busy trying to round up the last of the little ones she completely forgot I was still there.

The dude driving the truck was a big, dark-skinned man who spoke with a French accent. His companion was as large, but spoke with an American accent and I didn’t like the size of his rifle, so I stayed in the shadows. They noticed a lot of stuff around them, their gazes roaming about so I didn’t want to take the chance that they’d spot me.

A younger couple I recognised from Mouille Point was in the back of the truck already. They were talking and laughing, and helped pull the others’ stuff into the vehicle.

I stood like a statue, hardly daring to believe this happened. Even when the big black guy slammed the tailgate up it didn’t feel real. Then, in an angry roar of fumes, the truck lurched down the road and the last I saw of my warmbloods was their pale faces peering out at the world they were leaving behind.

And now?

Not everyone left with the convoy that went north. There were people, wild ones who never spoke to the others, who decided to take their chances with the zombies. The gangs moved in and I didn’t stop them. I became a shadow again, slipping between other shadows.

I killed a warmblood three months after my people left. He asked for it because he was walking around at night. I stalked him so that he knew he was being hunted. I chased him so that he thought he’d get away. And then I killed him. I ripped his throat out and I drank my fill.

Why?

That’s what vampires were supposed to do. I didn’t feel like pretending to be anything but that anymore. My game had been nice while it lasted, but it had only served to remind me that it was in my nature to hunt, stalk and kill. It didn’t help to dull that horrible ache in my chest, but if I let it take over, I didn’t have to think about why the ache was there.

Sometimes I climbed Lion’s Head when it was full moon. Warmbloods often used to do that in the old days. I guess someone had to continue with the ritual. The moon rose big and orange over the Hottentot’s Holland mountains, like a big eye. To me it was as bright as day. Even warmbloods could see well in this light. How many more times would I climb this mountain to watch the moon rise over a dead city? Would I stand sentinel for five years more? A hundred? Would the warmbloods return?

I didn’t have an answer to these questions but I’d keep climbing that mountain to watch the moon rise. I knew that much.

* * * *

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Short fiction: On An Empty Shore VII

On an Empty Shore

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Estelle showed me a history book not so long ago. Normally I didn’t bother looking at them but this one was interesting. It was about boats and the history of Cape Town. This place used to be called the Tavern of the Seas and over hundreds of years people used to stop here to pick up supplies.

I didn’t tell her that all I remembered was occasionally helping Korean or Filipino sailors find less than legal narcotics while they were on shore leave. They sometimes helped me out with cash which I could use to buy more heroin.

It blew my mind when I saw pictures of Woodstock that used to be a beach. The area today was just a wasteland of old industrial buildings and no one went there much because of the gangs. Guess some things didn’t change much, with or without zombies. All that land got reclaimed. I had no idea that most of the Foreshore used to be under water. Amazing stuff.

I never went down to the sea when I was a warmblood yet for some reason I was drawn there after my change. Some evenings I’d walk through Green Point to the promenade. There was a slipway that the fishermen sometimes used to launch their boats in the old days. The doors at the bottom were never locked, and the cove was sheltered and a perfect place to poke around in rock pools.

The sea had all sorts of moods. When it was winter, it got really exciting because then the surf would be big and sometimes the breakers would explode against the concrete in a huge wash of foam. I got soaked plenty like that. I didn’t feel the cold but there was something very cool and scary about not knowing whether the next wave would drench me.

The Atlantic was like a hungry beast, big and powerful. I liked playing with the danger that it could devour me, suck me off the rocks. One night the only reason it didn’t was because I got wedged in a crevice. Had to wait between rushes of water before I got to a safer distance from the worst of it. The rocks were like black teeth sticking out of the tidal pools. Death to both warmbloods and vampires if you got mashed on them. Many times zombies washed up there and got stuck and I chopped them into bits just for the hell of it.

At low tide I sat and the rock fish nibbled at my toes or I poked at the sea anemones. It felt weird but kinda nice the way they contracted over my fingers. It made me think of times when I’d been a little kid full of sand, only it was hot and ma made me wear a hat. I could almost taste the ice cream.

But there was one night I walked a lot farther along the rocks to where the sand started. I didn’t know what had drawn me out until I saw the long black shape lying on the sand. It was a whale―a very small whale but still a whale. The first I’d ever seen. Once I’d heard on the radio that they beached themselves and I suppose this was a similar situation.

When I looked I saw it wasn’t just one but seven of them and they lay there on the sand, their skins drying out. I could almost feel their sadness and their pain. They were dying and there was no one to help them.

I didn’t want to leave them there. My eyes felt very tight and so did my chest, though I didn’t need to breathe. Moving them wasn’t an option. They were too big except for one that was only slightly longer than I was tall.

I tried, okay? I really tried. I managed to shift the little one closer to the water. It helped also that the tide was coming in and I loved the way its black skin glistened the moment it got wet.

It was slippery in my arms and started to struggle when the waves broke over it. I don’t know for how long we fought each other and the waves. Eventually I was waist deep in the breakers that kept washing over my head. It’s okay, it’s not like I could drown but it was difficult keeping my footing.

We got out quite far and it was almost impossible for me to hold onto it.

“Go back to the sea,” I told him.

For a while he just flopped about in the water. I had to hold him so his blowhole pointed above the surface otherwise he just sank. Then he started swimming. Wow! I whooped and clapped then a wave knocked me over.

The little whale swam a short way along the shore.

Then I swore. He turned himself back at the beach and another big wave came and he just swam with it to beach himself on the sand again. I screamed at him, tried to tug him back out to the water. I tried another five times and it was close to dawn and I was as cold as the sea when I realised there was nothing I could do. The little whale was as tired as I was.

I couldn’t tell if it was the sea that was so salt in my mouth or if I tasted my tears. I hadn’t cried in a very long time but I got out of the water and stood there for a long while and stared at the terrible scene. Three of the whales had already died. Two were close to death. If I’d a gun I could have shot them so they wouldn’t suffer. Instead I did what I could. I went back to where I’d left my things and got my blade. I finished the whales so that they wouldn’t hurt anymore. Dark hot blood gushed onto the sand and bathed my hands and feet in great, iron-rich fountains.

I couldn’t bring myself to drink it.

* * * *

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Short fiction: On An Empty Shore VI

It’s Eat or be Eaten

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

I saw my first lion two years after the zombiepocalypse. Doesn’t matter that technically I was already dead, I still just about wet myself. Whether the lions escaped from that fancy lion park near Paarl or if they got out of one of the wildlife reserves I don’t know. I expect they were pretty quick to multiply and stake out territories because not long after that I did encounter a female with four cubs.

By then there were people farming close to the city, so the cows, pigs and sheep were easy pickings and I shouldn’t have been too surprised the night I came face to face with one. The southeaster was blowing like mad, and I was upwind from the beast. Guess it couldn’t smell me―not that vampires smell much like anything except dust―so both of us were totally clueless up until the last moment.

Our chance meeting happened not far from Lion’s Head, actually. Though I wasn’t laughing at the time. There was a quarry near there and I think the animal had gone there to drink. It was already quite dark and, on top of it, it was new moon.

Sure, I saw pretty good at night but I was preoccupied. Estelle’s girlfriend, Betty, had gotten sick and I was supposed to see if I could get antibiotics from the hospital, but the place was already picked clean. Not nice going back empty-handed.

I’d also seen the remains of a fresh zombie kill. It had been a young woman because I saw most of her face had been untouched, her expression one of horror. Her bones had been scattered and very well chewed. It grossed me out big time so ja, for once I didn’t look where I was going and I almost stomped on the big cat’s tail.

Fuck me, the lion moved fast. Almost as fast as I could run. Its claws whispered right past my back. It’s like I could feel them almost in my spine. I screamed like a little girl and fucking ran. I didn’t stop until I was almost at Estelle’s shelter.

At first they laughed at how freaked out I was but then it must have sunk in. Lions in the city centre meant they had more to worry about than zombies. By then Estelle and Betty had more people to living with them. Three small kids, and no one knew what had happened to their parents, so the ladies took them in. What if the lions got the kids? They were easy targets.

With every month that passed the city got more dangerous. Simply being able to run faster wasn’t always all that helpful. After a few more close shaves with local wildlife I took to carrying a weapon. I found an old samurai sword in one of the houses up in Camps Bay. Smart-looking thing with a carved ivory handle. Of course I was no swordsman but it would but it still made a bit of a difference. Now the skinny vampire had a steel claw.

But it wasn’t just the lions, and later bears or tigers. Yes. And wolves. It was also small stuff that could kill, and there wasn’t a doctor a phone call away who’d be able to help.

Snakes came down into the city: puff adders, Cape cobras. There were scorpions too. One of the kids got stung and almost died. I got bit once or twice but the poison only gave me a headache. It was the warmbloods who were really in trouble here.

People forgot that Africa used to be a very wild place. Estelle asked me to go to the library to get books for the kids and during the day I’d listen to her teach them about history and stuff. I never had teachers when I still went to school who told me stories with so much love.

I learnt stuff about South Africa, about its past. I sometimes wondered if the zombies hadn't done us all a big favour in a way. If it wasn’t the one group who stirred kak it was the other. People did some pretty horrid things to each other. What makes one man better than another? Coloured, black or white, they all bled the same. They tasted the same too. No diffs.

Sometimes I sat and wondered whether the zombiepocalypse wasn’t the earth’s way of wiping most of the warmbloods off the face of the planet. My uncle used to keep pigeons. He had hundreds of them, these big white fantail pigeons that used to preen and strut all over the roof of the house. And when they flew, their wings made a wonderful whirring sound.

My auntie always used to complain that he had too many pigeons and although they were white and quite pretty, they used to fight, the males, I think. One day the birds started dying. My uncle tried everything but he found out it was some sort of bugs that were attacking the birds. The vet told him it was because he had too many of them in the Wendy house out back.

Nearly all the pigeons died, almost to the last one. The ones that survived were clever enough to go live in the neighbour’s roof. They never came back though my uncle put out food for them.

Maybe the zombies were meant for the warmbloods. Maybe the vampires weren’t doing a good enough job keeping them in check so the zombies came to do the job properly.

But what do I know? I just gotta try figure the stuff out after the fact. Nothing out there would want to eat me, that much was for sure, but I still had to watch my back. Survival of the fittest, Estelle often said. I don’t think I was ever fit, but I kept correcting her and telling her it was survival of the fastest. She’d laugh at me and just shake her head. Guess it’s good to see the humour in these things.

* * * *

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Short fiction: On An Empty Shore V

Under the Radar

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

I mentioned there were the warmbloods who had guns, right? They were the ones who’d always been a bit twitchy even before the zombies arrived. Some were your average Afrikaners who’d always kept a stockpile of weapons despite the change in gun laws. A few others were the opportunists who grabbed what guns they could when the shit went down.

I didn’t like guns. I knew a bullet to the brain would kill me just like the next person―or a zombie, for that matter. A shot gun made a very big mess. While I didn’t need antibiotics or bandages, and my body healed pretty good once I’d had a dose of blood to speed up things, it still hurt like shit.

Also, if I was down and trying to heal up, it also meant that some lucky bastard could get closer to deliver that killing blow. I didn’t want to take that chance, so I generally stayed the hell away from warmbloods who pointed guns at me. I may not be alive in the true sense of the word, but I wasn’t stupid.

A gun often meant the difference between life and death after the zombies came. Once ammo ran out, it definitely levelled the playing field, if you catch my drift. And ammo wasn’t always easy to come by, since those who had sources protected them fiercely. After all, it wasn’t like there were factories producing the stuff anymore.

But ja, there was still more than enough live ammo in circulation to keep guns in action for years to come and I wasn’t about to take my chances. One man armed with a rifle could take pot shots and thin out a mob of zombies without breaking a sweat. Or flatten a lone vampire.

So I was always a bit more careful to go into territories where known gunmen lived. It was almost like the Wild West, Clint Eastwood and all. Unarmed vampires like me had to be careful.

I considered finding me a gun but I never did learn to shoot one. Something about handling a lump of metal that looked dangerous made me uneasy. Guns just scared me.

The gun people were total nutters. There’s this crazy dude who’d taken over the Castle of Good Hope. He kept himself a harem of wives and some animals in the place. Gates were locked almost the whole time. It took me three attempts to convince him that I was there to trade and bring news.

Gerrit Smuts almost squeezed in a head shot that first time. Bullet grazed my cheekbone and clipped my ear. Like getting burned. The next time he got me in the chest. Smack! Punched me right over and I lay there for about five minutes trying to figure out how to make my body work again.

Can you imagine his amazement when I got up again? But I had a letter from a woman who lived in Sea Point. She’d spoken to someone who’d heard they’d seen her sister near the Castle and she wanted to tell her she was still alive.

And it was worth the effort for me to be in as many good books as possible. Supply and demand, and all that. It’s not like I had any competition for my services, and payment in blood was a necessary evil, as far as the warmbloods were concerned.

There were also gangs. Fucking tsotsis who went about taking what they wanted from other people who couldn’t defend themselves. Fucking rapists made me angry enough to go after them.

People can point fingers at me and say I’m a monster, but I wasn't like these beasts who hurt others just because it made them hard. Waving a gun around in the air didn’t make you a man.

These assholes thought that just because they had guns they were safe. But a gun didn’t help against a death that could move silently and see better than you in the dark.

They raided a bit too close to home one night. Two of Estelle’s friends were raped, the one beaten so badly she died the next morning. I was near enough to hear the screams when it happened. Five guys were too many for me to take on but I followed them.

They made so much noise it was impossible to miss them. Their kicked litter and joked and laughed all the way back to where they stayed. What zombies they saw they shot. Overconfident stinking bastards. I got the first one when he went off by himself to take a slash. His buddies made the mistake of splitting into pairs to track me down.

Thing is, those guns did no good once I got close enough to rip out their throats. I didn’t feel bad about taking my fill of their blood. Scum didn’t deserve to breathe.

I’m no fucking Lone Ranger, but for once in my existence I’d got something to be proud of. It’s just a run-down city but it’s mine. No one told me what to do and the same went for the warmbloods under my care.

Granted, the day Estelle and her neighbour, a grumpy old sod who kept chickens, almost came to blows, I did tell them to cool it. For fuck’s sake, it’s chickens, damn it. There were worse things to fight about than worry about the price of eggs.

The zombies, man. They don’t just go away. It’s like that whole suspended animation vibe. If they didn’t have fresh meat they sort of went to sleep, lay there pretending to be a piece of furniture. I expected they could last almost forever like that.

I’d seen it with my own eyes and the damn things could move so quickly when the promise of fresh meat was near. One minute the dude just walked then next long rotted arms reached out from under a car to grab his ankles. Next he was dragged under and you didn’t want to think about what it sounded like. The crunching carried on long after he’d stopped screaming.

I hated hearing about new horror stories. Just like we South Africans used to complain about the crime in the old days, now it was zombie stories. The problem was there weren’t enough new warmbloods being born. Or they got sick and died because doctors were hard to come by or too expensive. It’s sad, man, and it broke my fucking heart because they’re so fragile.

I gotta look after them. Who else was gonna look out for them? My life depended on their survival.

Short fiction: On An Empty Shore IV

The Essence of Survival

Part I

Part II

Part III

When I discovered the zombies didn’t pay vampires any special mind, I was pretty blown away. There I’d been slinking around all the time when I didn’t have to. It was a big relief. It’s funny that now I was a lot safer than I’d ever been before. I would have laughed about it but there wasn’t anyone there to share the joke.

Even a vampire can only go so long before talking to himself stops being fun. I remembered that movie with that Gollum thing that made noises at the back of his throat as he was looking for his Precious. It was a bit too close to the bone.

Since I couldn’t find any vampires, I decided to try talking to the people, because they were about, just hiding like mad, especially at night. After a year or two, walking dead weren’t the only things they had to worry about.

The dogs that survived ran in packs and were lank dangerous. Animals that had been in zoos roamed about. Lions, tigers. Hell, bears even. With all the livestock running around there was plenty of food for them.

It’s enough to say things weren’t safe for warmbloods and it was pretty obvious that if I planned to eat in the future, it would be a good idea for me to look after them.

Talking to my food was better than talking to myself, in any case.

The first human I made friends with was this dyke and her girlfriend who were hiding in what used to be De Waterkant. They’d holed up in the cellar of an old house. I met Estelle when she was headed back from a scavenge mission. She was carrying lots of stuff she’d found in some of the shops that was still good to eat. Problem was the zombies were moaning on her tail.

I’d been following her too but when I saw her stop, as if she couldn’t figure out if she wanted to dump her shit and run, or try to get the stuff home, something in me snapped. Hell, I hadn’t spoken to someone in more than a year.

“You need help?” I called to her. My voice sounded very strange. Like it belonged to someone else.

She gave a small shriek and looked like she was going to drop dead from fright. When she saw me―and really, I’m not much to look at, I look like a girl with my long hair―she chilled out right then. I told her to head back to her place. I knew where she stayed. I knew where all the warmbloods stayed. To prove my point I took her bags and told her to run.

“But they gonna eat you! They gonna eat you!” Estelle cried.

I laughed. “No man, it’s cool. They won’t eat me. You’ll see.”

She looked at me like I was on drugs or something but when the zombies rounded the corner, she ran. I waited for the zombies to pass. Not pretty. They shambled past me and I stood still, closed my eyes. No sudden movements. Didn’t want to look at them either.

You should have seen her face when I brought her things to her. Like total amazement.

Warmbloods were faster than zombies but there were more zombies than warmbloods. Zombies could lie still for weeks and months without moving but the minute they smelled a warmblood they would follow. Going underground or finding higher ground helped, usually. But it also paid putting as much distance between yourself and the zombies. I think the reason why they didn’t sense me was because I didn’t give off heat.

I decided to be upfront with the warmbloods. After all, if they could believe in zombies, they could believe in vampires. When they understood I didn’t mean to kill them, that I only wanted a little blood in exchange for running errands or carrying messages, we quickly worked out a deal that was cool for all of us.

It wasn’t so bad. It gave me something to do and I was in good company. They didn’t look at me like I was worse than a piece of dog shit they just found under their shoes. Not like before when I was still doing brown. Back then they’d look at the track marks in my arms and they’d un-see me. I’d simply cease to exist for them.

Not every surviving warmblood liked me, though. There were groups of people with guns, who also knew about vampires, that would shoot me on sight. I generally stayed away from them. But it was the other people I helped. I got them to connect with each other. That’s how they started the first proper little villages. Almost like the gated security villages in the old days.

You know what? I still get warm and fuzzy when I think about that. I may be a small dude, but I can run fast. I can slip by unnoticed. I’d like to think that I’ve been selfless and good but I’ll be honest. It’s also about making sure that I keep up a supply. It’s almost like being a farmer―who talks to his sheep and his cows.

Would I ever turn another warmblood into a vampire? I didn't know so much. It would mean I’d have more competition. I tried not to get too close, even if I couldn't help but liking some of them. Estelle was like an auntie to me. I loved the way she smelled, because she made soap that had me think of the veld. It was nice when she hugged me. She was warm and when she laughed, her skin crinkled at the corners of her eyes.

When I looked in a mirror at Estelle's home I saw a very pale, dead face. I tried to smile but it looked like I showed my teeth, like one of those feral dogs. If I made another vampire, I’d just make something like me that may end up hurting these warmbloods who were now my friends.

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Short fiction: On An Empty Shore III

The Anatomy of a Junkie

Part I

Part II

A vampire isn’t all that different from a junkie. Kept away from a regular supply of fresh blood we get sick.

In the old days, when I was still scoring brown, there were times when I couldn’t get any. Could be that the cops intercepted a big shipment, or there was a delay somewhere along the line. The price would go up and either you made a plan to get money or you got sick; sweating and half shitting yourself to death going cold turkey.

If you were desperate, you scaled paregoric from the pharmacy. That was until the pharmacists cottoned on and started keeping the shit behind the counter. Paregoric is a tincture of opium, and prepping to shoot it was a mission. Even if you got it right, it burned like shit and the taste of camphor lingered in your mouth.

Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Being a vampire had one advantage. I never needed heroin again. While I got nostalgic-like about some of those old days, I can’t say I missed that never-ending worry about where I’d get my next portion.

My unlife revolved around a far more terrifying addiction. It wasn’t that I found blood disgusting. Far from it. It’s just the idea of hunting people freaked me the fuck out because I never was the sort to go out looking for trouble. To have to approach someone to bite them, although it felt like the right thing to do, still scared the crap outta me.

Most people were bigger and stronger than me. Guns and knives could still hurt me, though I healed a helluva lot faster. Once I got blood. But it was the getting blood that wasn’t easy.

Laugh all you want. I don’t care. Just be glad you’ve never fiended bad for the one thing that keeps you from turning into a fucking wild animal, foaming at the mouth like a dog with rabies, and go around biting people.

Biting people isn’t cool. Vampires that went around biting people in the old days got put down. They had to be sneaky. The warmbloods must never know. As much as I didn’t ask to be turned into a vampire, I was still attached to existing. No one likes the idea of dying. Even if God existed, I wasn’t prepared to take the chance that I really was damned.

It took about two nights to come to terms with what I’d become. By then, I was starving. My veins almost clawed their way out of my skin to throttle me but the more water I drank the more I puked. I’d holed up in my digs I shared with a buddy who put up with me because I scored him weed.

Food was the last thing on my mind. I was thirsty, like I could drink out a swimming pool and never kill the need for liquid. I spent those two nights sicker than ever before. During the day I was dead to the world, but at night I shivered and shook. It’s only when I looked in the mirror on the second night, and saw what had become of my teeth, that it sort of sunk in. A big WTF moment. I had great big fucking canines. I smelled my buddy, asleep in his bedroom.

I mean he smelled really good, like I could eat him.

I wasn’t quite all there. I was tripping off my tits from the thirst and I did what any vampire in my condition would do. I let my thirst ride me.

Maybe I spared Sean a worse death. I wasn’t very good at being a vampire and I bit him a few times and it must have really hurt before I got it right and drank him up like he was the best wine ever. But it sure beat what the zombies would have done.

And I think he kinda got into it near the end. That’s the thing with vampires. Warmbloods sink into the whole vibe of being sucked on. Maybe it’s something in our spit. They go limp the moment the fangs sink into the skin.

It’s better than sex. It’s better than junk.

I got beaten up a few times until I learned to be clever about stalking my prey. I always took out the ones that would have died anyway. At least I keep telling myself that. I didn’t always kill, but often then ones I drank from were so weak, I don’t think they survived every time.

Some of the other vamps said we were the apex predators. Whatever that meant. Just fancy words. Still didn’t change the fact that we killed and that didn’t always sit right with me.

Nowadays I don’t kill at all. They’re so scared, the warmbloods. Their blood is thin and bitter. I look into their eyes and I see fear. Real fear. In the old days they could pretend they were immortal, like us. That illusion’s been stripped away. There’s no pretend-pretend now.

Maybe if I work hard at it, I can somehow show that I’m better than the mindless flesh junkies roaming the street. I don’t want to be like that, just eating and eating and eating. I want to be something better, and I’m not quite sure if I am.

I’ll never kick this habit unless I greet the sun. And I’m too chicken shit to do that. Some small part of me wants to make up for what I was when I was still a warmblood. It’s all bullshit anyhow. I don’t know what I really want anymore. I can’t change anything.

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Short fiction: On An Empty Shore I

For Once We Weren’t the Greater Evil

Where were you when the zombiepocalypse happened? Nasty piece of work wasn’t it? They didn’t see it coming, the dumb fucks. One moment everyone went on like the world wasn’t going to come to an end, chasing their daily lemming-grind. The next boom! neighbour ate neighbour and everything just ground to a standstill.

Me? I noticed the shit was going down when I came out at night to see the streets were all but deserted. Lots of sirens. More than usual for Cape Town by night. And, of course, the other weird factor. No street people. Doorway after doorway was empty of bodies wrapped in blankets or makeshift cardboard shelters. No easy snacks for nocturnal lurkers like me.

At the time I was doing what any self-respecting vampire would do at night—prowling and keeping an eye out. For what I wasn’t quite sure. No acting like the big dude like those snooty bastards in their penthouses, who got their food brought up to them all discreet like.

Being all high and mighty didn’t help them when things turned to shit. By the time the warmbloods called in the army, it was too late. Damn zombies pretty much chewed their way through everyone who put up a struggle. What a waste of perfectly good blood. Zombies were only after one thing: meat. And they weren’t too picky about the condition they found it in, so long as it filled the gap.

This kinda left us vamps at a loose end. The clever warmbloods who survived were armed to the teeth and extra freaked out, which made it tricksy for the rest of us to get a meal. In the end vampire turned on vampire, and this is where it was better to be streetwise.

No one ever paid me―Joost Brink―any attention when I was alive. They paid me even less once I was undead. Small, skinny ex-junkie. Not important in the grander scheme of things, hey? This saved my bacon when the almighty papaya hit the proverbial fan. The old ones at the top were the first to go, if they weren’t clever enough to go into hiding. Which they weren’t.

They expected their loyal lieutenants to keep them safe. The lieutenants did what any self-serving creature of night would. They looked after number one, and number one wasn’t the boss man. Who knew?

The things I saw during those first nights of fire, blood and terror I don’t want to remember. I am glad vampires don’t dream because if that were the case I’d have daymares. Or whatever you’d call it. Dunno.

It’s kinda twisted that a monster like me would want to puke after seeing stuff like kidlets all ripped into bits, the horrible gnashing mouths chomping onto tender flesh. Lips blue in death smacked as fat dribbled between the gaps where teeth had been knocked out. Even I never killed kids, okay.

An old man made his last stand, cornered in his driveway. Armed with only a nine-millimetre pistol, he fought off a mob of walking dead. He took out one with a head shot at almost point blank range but by then it was too late―too many of the rotting things clawed and moaned at him.

The truly fucking hysterical thing about this whole drama was that the zombies simply weren’t interested in other undead. Not that I claimed any relations to the shambling rotten things. As far as they were concerned, we belonged among their ranks.

The night I discovered this I would have pissed myself if I could. I’d walked straight into a pack of the beasts, and bumped into a creature that may once have been a secretary or a sales rep, had half her skin not hung off her in loose sheets. Grey meat gleamed in the low light. We bounced into each other and I staggered back half a step then froze, half expecting her and all the rest to fall upon me the same way they’d dismember warmbloods.

To my fucking disbelief they shoved past me, as though I were just a lamp post or some other obstacle in their path. They did not even pause to sniff in the air. Bully for me. I should have smelled them but there were parts of the city where the overall stench of rotted meat was so strong I sometimes overlooked the obvious. I tended to go on sight rather than smell. I wouldn’t make that mistake again.

It still didn’t help that my food was in short supply. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to turn to zombies for a Happy Meal. Their blood, such as it was, was viscous and black, and smelled like they looked―days-old road kill.

I preyed on the lost, the hopeless, much as I had before the zombies took over, but somehow now, despite my hunger, I simply lacked the taste for the kill. I used to see myself as an angel of death, wouldn’t drag out the inescapable shit. The warmbloods who cowered in their nooks and hidey-holes were even more pitiful than the dregs I used to cull. I just couldn’t do it. They clung to life like kittens drowning in a bucket. Often, I slunk back to my lair hungrier than when I awoke.

Mind you, a starving vampire was about as frightening as a horde of zombies. I stalked the deserted streets, stepped around cars discarded like oversized toys. I stooped to feeding off feral dogs, of which there were many and, besides, the infernal things tried to hunt me of occasion. I may have been the runt among the vampires, but I wouldn’t allow mere dogs to make me roll and show my neck.

Cape Town was weird without the cheery bright lights or the low rumble of traffic. From time to time I’d see the flicker of candles from some of the high-rise buildings, tenacious warmbloods barricaded from the gore-fest in the streets below. For the most I let them be. It’s almost as if for once, they deserved a break, the poor bastards.

Warmblood or vampire, we were in this mess together. I didn’t know where those zombies came from any more than the warmbloods. We were equally fucked.

The silence was louder than a siren.

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