Flash fiction

The names of the crew replaced those of the actor’s onscreen, and the snotty punk music changed into an orchestral score played on a synthesiser.
“These are the guys who make the film, you know.”
“I know, Mal.”
“The actors just do what they’re told. Or, you know, try to.”
The Slaughters of Christ was being praised—on genre websites—with single-handedly bringing back Nunsploitation movies. Mal didn’t like it.
The deal was, we took it in turns. I watched the auteur-director-drivel films he chose and he watched the films I chose. Admittedly they weren’t art but at least something happened in them. Mal wanted to be a screenwriter-slash-director. I wanted to be a screenwriter-slash(haha!)-actor.
“I could hardly see the final scene, the lighting was off,” he said.
“Sure, Mal.” He was right, but that was clever. They didn’t have the budget for convincing effects for the, what would she be called? the Boss Nun? the Nun Queen? to morph into a demon and eat all the naked younger nuns in bright light. Besides they were in a cave, why wouldn’t it be dark?
“I suppose we’re watching Slaughters of Christ, Part 2: The Nunnoning, next time you pick a film?
“Sure Mal,” I said. “And before that we’ll watch Bearded Mumblecore Monologue, Part Whatever, when you choose.”
He tilted his beer bottle to get the last warm drip of beer. “I’m going to bed,” he said.
I turned in too. I had my script almost finished. Tomorrow. Then a quick second draft and start submitting it. It was good. It was going to start me on the road to success and the fist of many busty Hollywood wives.

I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I was just drifting off, Mal intruded. He pointed at me and laughed getting closer and closer, until I could feel the heat of his breath. A nightmare. He was going to make more money than me. He was a better filmmaker. He was a director. I woke covered in sweat. He was in the doorway, watching me. “Sleep well?”, he asked.
I shook my head.
“All those cheap horror films are giving you nightmares,” he said. Then he continued talking about how men went to the hairdresser more often than women, even though they supposedly cared less about their appearance, and a guy he went to kindergarten with, who might be gay, not that it mattered but he was allergic to avocados, and being creative shouldn’t be about ego although how can it not be?
I woke up with a start, covered in sweat.
“Sleep well?” he asked. Then he told me about a documentary he’d seen. About how pigs were raised for slaughter, in darkness but with some kind of UV light, but they didn’t get a tan, wasn’t that strange? And palm oil was used in biscuits and ice-cream, which meant it was soft and crunchy, and he wanted me to help him take a new profile photo for Tinder, because cats were no longer in, like they used to be. Why didn’t people eat cats, if they ate dogs? Everybody thinks dogs are dirtier than cats but nobody eats cats, so maybe it’s a cultural thing.
I woke, covered in sweat.

He already had a moustache. His daddy had made him a little gun-belt, too. The biggest, ugliest baby I ever seen. Not that I’d say that out loud: he was the Sheriff’s son. Burl was his name, but his Momma called him Burly, when she was out and about. And wherever she went, the place emptied out pretty quickly. I felt sorry for her, but there was no saying anything in case the Sheriff caught wind of it. 
So she was stuck with the baby most days, the Sheriff himself having a lot of business around town, all of a sudden. The only thing on everybody’s mind was little Burly Baby. With his moustache and his thick shoulders and his little gun-belt shooting off reflections as he drooled and scowled. He was shaping up to be as much of a bully as his Daddy. Couldn’t stop thinking about that damn baby. The whole town went quiet after he was born. Even in their own homes, in case the wind changed, and carried their words out the window and into the Sheriff’s ears.
It was a relief when the kid started walking around. On the other hand, it wasn’t. We’d spent so much time thinking about little Burly without being able to say a damn thing, that it was a relief to see he wasn’t some shared hallucination. The first time he came out his Momma was behind him, but he had no more need of her. His moustache was halfway to his chin and his Daddy had bought him little toy guns to put in his holster. The poor Momma looked tired and Burl quickly left her behind. 

I bumped into him in the woods. He gave me the foulest look I’d ever seen. He was still drooling, his moustache grey from slobber and his single eyebrow going from ear to ear. He’d found one of the cats that made a good go at being a stray. He had his toy gun out as he played with it. Bashing its head in. I passed on and never said a word to anyone in case his father thought I was bad-mouthing his son. 

It was agreed he should be homeschooled after he attended his first class. In return the school children should first apologise for laughing or whatever it was they must have done to set him off. Then he was out of sight for a few more years. He didn’t mix well. We went through so many teachers, that the sheriff arranged for the new teacher to stay in the jailhouse when he wasn’t at work. For his own sake. 

There was a river a couple miles out, real secluded, and people’d go there and talk about the Baby—he remained Burly Baby, even though he was in his twenties by now. They’d talk about the things he’d done, how he looked at them, and how no one was allowed to say anything, and the water took the words away downstream and they’d feel better. 

There was a knock on my door.  I knew it was him.  I’d been young when the Sheriff’s wife gave birth and it had put me right off the thought of marriage. The town was dying out.
There he stood, with the same moustache and the same angry look. I shrank back, but I don’t think he noticed, because we’d all had so much practice.
‘Hi Burl,’ I said.
He pushed his way in and he had real guns in his belt. ‘You got whiskey?’ he asked. I didn’t. Anyone who had whiskey had drunk it. It was only the teetotallers left. And Burl, who couldn’t get his Daddy to buy him more after last time. 
‘I’m thirsty,’ he said, twitching his moustache in a manner that I could never figure out. I had some coffee on the stove and he drank that, which made him talkative.
‘I’m thinking of getting a wife,’ he said.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘But there ain’t no women.’
‘Right,’ I said. There weren’t. You had a daughter you married her off real quick, before Burl came around.
‘How come you never married?’ he asked. He started wandering around my room, poking at the photo over my hearth and my pan of food and sucking my evening meal off his finger.
‘Never fancied it.’
‘I think it’s time we married you off, as well,’ he said.
‘Sure, just need to find us some women.’ I relaxed. I couldn’t think of a single one anywhere that we could get in trouble by talking.
‘But I’m getting married first. I need to have kids, carry on the line.’
There was another knock at the door. 
‘So if you can wait a few years, I’m going to give you my eldest.’
‘Sure.’ But I didn’t feel so fine no more.
The sheriff pushed into my room when I opened the door. Dragging his wife in after him.
‘So you’ll be my best man?’

I hear them snapping. Sometimes there’s a rustle as they brush against the grass. They snap more when the wind is strong. I don’t think they can smell. Maybe the wind, blowing through their skin, tickles the muscles in their jaws. They catch birds. A flock will come down. If they step too near the zombies’ mouths then snap! When the wind is strong, it’s like a sea of weeds and denim. 
Very few come to get gas, but I keep the shop open. You never know. I’ve got a nice collection of drivers’ licenses, too. Not everyone can pay for the stuff anymore. In money. It’s all about meat these days. Everybody wants it. 
Daisies grow around the side of the building. The plants get really tall. Some days you can’t see the zombies at all. Just a snapping and a rustling. 
They go quiet when it rains. Who’d have thought zombies were afraid of drowning? 
I’ve got a blue sky above me. As wide as the eye can see. Some days there’re clouds. One day I saw a Chevy. Just like one I used to own, too. On days when I get really bored, I go up to the roof. Take pot shots at the zombies. Only out the back of the building, of course. You don’t go shooting near a pump. 
There’s a trail of dust to my left. Someone coming. Customers. I make sure the gun is loaded. 
There are four of them squashed into a small Japanese car. Which means they let two out, half a mile up the road. Even if I hadn’t seen them through my binoculars, the snapping of zombie teeth would have given them away. I keep my zombie garden full.
‘Hey, mister!’ One of them shout through the window, the driver. He’s wearing a black leather jacket. It goes well with his curly orange hair. He’ll brighten up my garden. ‘Mister! You got any gas?’
I say nothing. Just because I live in Bumfuck, Nowhere, USA, doesn’t mean he can waste my time. They need me to open up. Then they rush me.
‘Looks like it’s gonna rain, guys’ I said.
Ginger looked up at the sky.
‘I need an umbrella. Wait right there.’ I climbed onto the roof. Took out the two guys behind the garage before they knew what was happening. Two shots. They dropped. Their buddies drove off. I watched the trail of dust. It rose into the sky. It looked like a face. As it rose, it turned towards me. But as it grew, it got fainter. 
Then it was just me on the roof by myself.

The full title of this one is Used, or Elevated Horror is Ruining It For Those Of Us Who Just Want To Read A Good Zombie Story and It’s Not Even Elevated Horror, You Just Don’t Know How It Ends.

To which I reply: Not elevated horror? No proper ending? Voilà!

*Tosses perfumed curls, points to page*

It’s got a rooftop climax, doesn’t it?