//------------------------------// // The Cursed Nightmare // Story: Zombie of One // by Impossible Numbers //------------------------------// That night… That night, the mask was gone. Ruby opened her eyes. She was in the kitchen again. The same dirty dishes, the same untouched sink, the same gleam on the little window. She turned immediately to the door. Beyond… Well, the door had an innocent, pregnant look. Anything could be lurking behind it. She imagined herself pushing it, imagined the creak, the entry into blackness, and then the sudden light to reveal the hallway and… something moving in it. So she didn’t move at all. Then she heard the thump. Upstairs, something had fallen to the floor. Ruby seized her panic and rushed for the door, burst into the narrow strip of hallway, heard – over her own panting – the footstep, the footstep, the footstep… the scraaaaape… If she could get out of the house! She could already hear the zombie upstairs approaching the top of the flight. She’d be the first thing it saw. Ruby rammed into the front door and rebounded flat onto her back. The door had barely shuddered. Panic made a bid for freedom; it pushed her scream out of the way. The yanking forces threw her onto her hooves a second before she heard the raspy intake of breath. At the top of the stairs already!? It must have spotted her! Ruby wrestled with the handle, smacked the lock, threw her tiny weight against the woodwork. Whatever had made it stick fast, it was still refusing to move. The thump, thump, thump of hooves coming down the xylophone stairs. She knew it was already a quarter of the way down. Sobs convulsed in her throat as Ruby fled for the living room. Too empty, too bare, the sofa and settee could only shield her for so long, she couldn’t run forever. The last thump as the zombie reached the bottom of the stairs. Footstep, footstep, footstep, scraaaaape… Ruby screamed gibberish. Names, pleas, cries of help: the outbursts could have been any of them. She shrank into a corner, pressing her face firmly against the wall, too terrified to watch the approaching footstep, footstep, footstep, scraaaape. There! She remembered the old serving hatch. Long before, this had been a fancy dining room, not a living room; there had been a hole in the wall to allow plates straight from one to the other. Piña had always called it a “food window”. The gap was still there, just a leap away. Blocked, yes, but better than waiting here. Ruby leaped. As the pitiful moans behind her grew more urgent, Ruby clasped the edge of the serving hatch as though about to haul herself onto a shelf. Her rear legs flailed against the wall. Approaching breaths tickled her back. With a heave, she tipped herself over the edge, tail smacking into – she gasped – what felt like gaping teeth, and then the spice rack that had long since blocked the hatch burst off the wall and crashed onto the floor, scattering glass and bottles and brown powders. Ruby crunched through it – – something sharp bit her leg – – but she wrenched it out of the wood and saw she’d cut the skin just above the pastern. She flexed the leg. No numbness. She could still gallop. From the living room, the zombie groaned in aching pain, as if her escape was hurting it. Footsteps stopped. Heavy smacks and the squeak of skin against wood took over. It was climbing through after her, despite the shattered glass and bits of broken wood. They did not know pain. They did not know fear. They would simply keep going, no matter what was between them and their prey. All Ruby could do was stay one step ahead. She was out of the kitchen and into the hallway before she stopped to think. A perfect circle. She could gallop from kitchen to hallway to living room and back to the kitchen, forever and ever, and… No, she couldn’t. She’d grow tired. It wouldn’t. Why was the front door locked!? There was a horrible crash from the kitchen, as of a body crunching wood. Again! Ruby ran the whole length of the hallway, rammed her shoulder into the front door, met nothing but sheer resistance. She might as well have rammed the wall. Across the kitchen floor: footstep, footstep, footstep, the scuffing of a dragged hoof on tiles. One bit of sense cut through Ruby’s mind. Don’t run in circles. Shake it off. Hide! She ran up the stairs just as something shifted in the kitchen doorway. Fear shut her eyes. Sheer muscle memory got her up the steps in a musical melody of crude thumping footfalls. That was it! She opened her eyes, burst into her room, shut the door, dived into the bed, and – Footstep, footstep, footstep, scraaaaape… Down below. No. Too easy to find. Just as the thumping of the steps started, Ruby dived under the bed instead. Drew all limbs close, tucked them under her body, buried her muzzle in her hocks, and waited, eyes wide, staring at the door. She didn’t even dare to tremble. The fear was too cold, too frozen, too close, too sharp. Thump… thump… thump… thump… Sweat tickled her forehead. She had to blink a bead out of her eye. Thump… thump… thump… thump… Ruby was so desperate to hide, she slammed the lids down over her eyes and screwed up her face as if to push her soul further back, deep into her body. Thump… thump… thump… Footstep, footstep, footstep, scraaaaaape… Desperate to hide, desperate to flee: Ruby’s eyes shot open, as if afraid the door had vanished while she’d been blind. If there was the slightest chance to escape, she couldn’t afford to miss it. The door creaked open. Three hooves shuffled in, as if their owner was sleepwalking. The fourth, though – Ruby slammed her hoof into her mouth. The merest gasp would be death to her. There was far too much leg, far too close to the ground, far too horizontal for a healthy limb. Either it was comically stretched, or some part of the anatomy was horribly torn and stringy. She was so, so glad she couldn’t see any higher up. All three hooves and the dragging leg shuffled in, turned away, followed the bed round, slowly, slowly opening the escape route. Still, Ruby didn’t move. As the zombie shuffled towards the edge of her vision, she turned her gaze to follow without shifting her head at all. A scrape of chin against hoof would be one scrape too many. The zombie vanished from view. Soon, it’d be on the opposite side of the bed. The way was clear for a run. Ruby wished she wasn’t so lazy, but her limbs refused to jump to attention. No, no point in running. Hide, wait, hope. Footstep, footstep… a pause. Nothing. Was it confused? Zombies didn’t have any intelligence. Perhaps it had no idea where she was, had lost the scent, was trying to figure out how to follow something that had, as far as it could tell, randomly disappeared. Maybe it would leave her alone, search the rest of the house, let her relax, even let her fall asleep safely… Too late, she remembered her tail. Teeth yanked her hairs, stung her dock, burned the carpet against the floor as Ruby screamed backwards. The zombie had slowly bent down. It was now straightening up. Ruby thrashed and kicked and writhed and grabbed any part of the bedframe she could reach before sheer mechanical forced wrenched her away from it. Then the space felt open and bare. Blankets flapped in her face. Her screams were her heart being choked to death by the adrenalin flood. Ruby fought off the blankets, saw the ceiling and the white eyes, had her face invaded by far, far too many flat molars – Sharpness crunched. Ruby’s scream stopped when she smacked her head on the floor. Weights fell too heavily on her jaw and neck, her brain felt like a bowling ball, and then the rest of her body slipped and tumbled out of bed with a thump. She was still screaming when faster footsteps hurried to her door and the wood was flung backwards. For a moment, hooves closed on in her through the sheets. In sheer misery, she kicked back. “Ruby! Ruby!” Berry’s voice. Strong forelimbs ripped the sheet off – Ruby cowered on the pile – and white eyes – NO! No, Berry’s eyes crinkled overhead. “Ruby,” she said softly. “It’s OK, it’s OK. It was just a dream.” The terror didn’t believe her. Squealing, Ruby buried herself in Berry’s limbs and chest, screams dissolving into sobs of shame and dread. She was too scared to let go. “Shhhhh.” Berry’s voice poured over her like warm water. “Calm down, that’s it, let it all out, there’s a good girl.” Ruby stopped fighting her own ribcage, which convulsed and shook until she couldn’t cry anymore. She had her mother back. The stupid thought met no resistance and trickled through to her tight limbs, her puffing lungs, her iron-locked face. Everything dissolved and slowly drained away. But Berry wasn’t her mother. The thought had given up. This was nothing but a big mistake. “I’m s-sorry,” whined Ruby – her voice was muffled by the grown-up’s strong chest. “I’m sorry!” “For what?” said Berry, amused. Ruby had no idea; she simply stuck to what she knew, if only in her bones. “I’m sorry. I’m… I’m sorry… I’m sorr-sorry… I…” Soothing and shushing, Berry patiently washed the sorries away. Now Ruby felt like an invalid child, one sitting helplessly in bathwater while the flexing adult limbs around her did all the rinsing and massaging and drying for her. She couldn’t get rid of the last of her fear, which kept her frightened legs clinging on. “You’ve done nothing wrong,” said Berry. “Don’t be sorry, OK?” “I’m s– OK! I’m OK! I’m OK.” Through the wrapping blankets, Berry cocooned her in a tight hug. And to her own shock, Ruby was revolted. That was what scared her. She loved Berry. Right now, she loved anyone who pulled her out of the nightmare’s teeth. She loved Berry’s cheer. She loved Berry’s warm glow and world of sloshing, refreshing drinks. But deep down, it was wrong. Berry shouldn’t have been here. She should have been a long, long way away. Ruby didn’t live with her. They were breaking rules she couldn’t explain. It was all a lie. It was like waking up to find complete strangers had stolen her family and were pretending all was normal. How dare she hug Ruby!? How dare she!? Anger smacked away fear. Ruby pushed herself out of Berry’s grip and clambered back into bed. She never once made eye contact; instead, she glowered at the wall. Berry took a long time to ask: “Anything I can do?” “I’m trying! To sleep!” The slightest of sighs. It could have been a ghoul trying to stay silent in ambush. But it was Berry’s trembling voice that broke the curse. “OK. That’s fine. Fine. Goodnight, Ruby.” The door scraped shut. Then it scraped open again. “Remember, I’m in the next room if you ever need me, OK?” “Goodnight,” snapped Ruby. Slowly, almost painfully, the door scraped shut. Berry was wrong. This house was wrong. Ruby curled up on the bed and stifled as many of her broken sobs as she could, no matter how wet the pillow got. Ruby was wrong.