“An Inscapable Wildness” The heatwave had intensified the smell. The scent of flesh invades my nostrils and never leaves. No such thing as being nose-blind to the scent of so many bodies. The bodies press against the safety fences, trampling over the dead, their fetid flesh scraping against the hot metal as They shove their hands through the chinks, desperate. For what, we aren’t sure. They usually stay away from the Borders. Yet here we all are, amassed. We fight Them at the gates, trying to get Them to retreat. I gaze upon the canyon in the distance, split open like a wound in the parched earth. The bodies stretch from here all the way through the canyon to the Wastes, beyond my field of vision. What do they want? I ponder, watching. They are frantic, eager, their eyes wild. The kind of wildness a starving person carries in their eyes, day and night. An inescapable wildness. Why else would They box themselves into the canyon like that? They are sitting ducks. But maybe…that is what They want. I turn and flee, back to the village nestled in the safe bosom of the forest, away from the crush of bodies at the Borders. The air is fresher, cleaner in the woods. With each step, I try to rid my memory of the stench of that horrid place, the frightening desperation in Their eyes. I stumble into the center of the village, straight to the elder shaman’s hut. I rush in just as a young man is leaving, clutching a bottle of potion. He looks as desperate to leave as I am to get in. “I know what They want!” I declare without preamble. “Why They’ve come to us. It isn’t to eradicate us, like we originally thought!” The shaman looks up. Her every movement rings, tinkles, and rattles with demonic accoutrements. “They? The humans, you mean.” She sits cross-legged on the dirt floor, her bony knees almost poking through her gauzy dress, flimsy with age. Before I can continue, she tosses a handful of knuckle bones into the air, yellowed and well-worn with age, and watches them land. Oracle bones. The shaman picks up one of the bones, nodding to herself. Her eyes suddenly flick to mine, intense and questioning. “What is it the humans want so badly? Why are they trying to breach the very gates they erected to keep us away from Them?” My tongue flits between the place where a canine tooth should be. A tooth I lost that will never grow in again. “The humans crave death, Master Shaman. I thought it was because They would rather be dead than live in the world They created for themselves. But…They crave death in a different way.” I drift off, unsure of what I am thinking. “Go on boy, speak.” “The humans…well…they don’t just want to be dead. They still want to live. But they want to live like us.” “Us?” I nod, solemn. “They want to live like the undead.”

Unforgiving Undead Revenge I made a mistake when a thump in the night felt through my bedroom floorboards shook my mattress with me cuddled up and rolled up in its blankets. Something startled me fast awake. No monsters or mobsters, nor demons abounded in my bedroom. So back to sleep, I mistakenly went. It started long ago, during the time of kings, the Black Death took the lives of those poor devout souls. For whatever reason, those dead from the plague stayed dead until now. Arising during April, the cruellest month, bleeding the bloody life out of those who have not yet passed after them. No longer able to stir the desires of any heart, to hug, to kiss, or even to get yelled at by their spouse, family, or friends. For all lay dead beneath these lands from past times when this country of farmers and hunters was owned by a duke, and in turn owned by a king in the thirteenth century. The dead did not pass nor rest at peace over ownership changes to their lands and their dead bodies unblessed when hurriedly laid to rest in all those shallow unblessed mass graves outside those hallowed church cemeteries. We forgot their way of life, and abandoned their churches, now surrounded by wire mesh fences. Forgotten cemeteries, unmarked graveyards, and mass graves surround the vanished villages and towns now beneath artificially fertilised crop land. No longer owned by a king, these lands are now owned by the corporation. Covered by miles of corporate fallow fields over the buried and forgotten bodies. Those ancient devoted followers lay dead in mostly shallow graves going unattended by all of our uncaring living corporate world. I, the hired-hand tractor driver, said, "Where the dead are buried isn't my responsibility. I only sow seeds where I am told. So what if it's over mass graves? Leave me alone. It's my job." Until, three days ago, after Good Friday, the stirring began in the peasant mass graves. The dead arose from the unblessed dirt in graveyards to hunt undressed as rotting burial shrouds dropped from their emaciated corpses onto the ground still unblessed. With every step, the undead spread, craving living flesh to mend the unfilled holes in their naked skin to refresh and regrow their long dead maggot shredded muscle, sinew, and body organs. Seeking our fresh flesh and fresh organs to fill empty skin stretched over bare gray bones and nothing more. The ancient plague victims clawed themselves out of their shallow Saint Vida's church mass graves to stumble across corporate fields and down long straight black cracked asphalt roads long ago paved over ancient cobblestone routes buried as they once were. But now across open fields, hedgerow ditches, stumbling and tripping, the undead masses closed in on nearby distant lights of our village, no longer owned by a king but by a heartless corporate entity. I, the hired-hand tractor driver, am the first to be devoured by the hunger's unforgiving undead revenge.

Sound swelled around her, ebbing and flowing until it almost drowned her. The crowd – muffled by the thick walls – buzzed with hungry excitement. The rotters – closer, right on the other side of the gate – hungered for something else. No excitement. Just a mindless, moaning drone. Her heart kicked into a higher gear. The world sharpened – colours brighter, sounds louder. The wind shifted carrying their stench – putrefaction, decay, death. She took small breaths through her mouth, trying not to taste them. The enormous screen dominated her vision. A countdown filled it. With every number that vanished, a steel wire tightened another turn around her insides. A hand clamped around her arm and a scream escaped her. “What are you doing?” an angry voice hissed in her ear. She turned slightly and smiled. “Mum. You made it.” “Why are we here? What are you doing?” Turning fully now, the smile spread into a grin. “You brought them all. Thank you.” She pulled her mother into a quick hug, releasing a breath that loosened the steel wire inside her. “Don’t thank me,” her mother snapped. “I didn’t want to come. Your fool brother snuck in here knowing I'd follow. Knowing I couldn’t lose you both.” “We’ll be fine. I have a plan.” She caught her brother’s eye. They shared a quick laugh. Their mother looked between them, exasperation and terror on her face. “You think you have a plan,” she said. “But you can’t win this. It’s not worth it.” “How is it not worth it?” she said. “The prize is Citizenship. A house. A job. Papers for your whole family. Escape from the Shades. A life inside the city.” “People like us don’t win prizes like that.” The screen’s light gleamed in her mother’s eyes. “I’ve been watching the competition my whole life,” she said, taking her mother’s hand. “We all have. It’s required.” Her mother nodded, still confused. “Once a month, ten people from the Shades go inside the walls. Nine stay and become rotters. One leaves a Citizen.” “Yes,” her mother said impatiently, pulling her hands free. “We know this. Why did you want us here? We’re breaking the rules just being here with you.” She watched the final numbers tick down. “When I was watching, I realised something.” Her mother frowned. “If the walls are tall and thick enough to keep the rotters in…” She looked up at the towering barrier surrounding the arena. “...then they’re tall and thick enough to keep the rotters out.” A loud metallic clang made them all jump. The countdown reached zero. The gates swung open. Her mother grabbed her and her brother, drawing breath to scream. No rotters came flooding toward them. Instead, the sound of the crowd changed. The excited roar shattered into shrill screams – panic, fear, pain. She looked up. The people of the Shades poured through the inner gates, flooding the arena. Looking back at her mother, she smiled. “I decided to change the rules.”