Zombies News Flash from: Cabazon, CA

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by AimeeKay of How can you help?
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Received from the desert around Cabazon and Desert Hot Springs...

Excerpt from Diary: June 24th

It's June and it's hot, too hot...

It's been hot for days.

We finally made the decision to move from the desert up into the mountains, hoping to find relief from the heat.

I'm not sure if I like the idea...at least in the desert it's flat and we can see things coming.

I suggested we try to explore more of the old casino...try to clear it out...they should have gennys in there somewhere for power outages right?

Mat thinks it's a bad idea though. Too many places to hide, too many dark places.

He says we don't have enough ammo to waste trying it and failing....we'd already tried a few of the bigger buildings in a few of the towns we passed and had some close calls.

It's was weird....everything was broken, like this bad neighborhood we used to live in...

Buildings falling apart, trash everywhere, broken windows, abandoned cars...but it wasn't just restricted to one area, it was the whole town.

Then there was the graffiti, it was everywhere too. But it wasn't the normal tagger signs, like the ones that you see on train cars, no not like that at all. These red,blue or green, 3 ft tall cries for help. Sprayed on sheets and hung from windows. Saying how many were inside, or giant x's on the buildings.

I guess someone had had the courtesy to let us know that those inside were beyond help. We'd checked out a few of both just to be certain. We decided after that not to look anymore We still investigate the towns for ammo and supplies, but we stopped looking for people.

They came to us, before we settled in the desert there were at least 10 vehicles in our caravan. So we were hard to miss.

We've been lucky, the only other people we've run into have simply wanted to survive, and have been too busy doing that to think of fighting.

Guess he's right, about the casinos....


I just don't like the idea of going up into the hills, the roads are crazy steep and winding, I don't wanna risk losing the RV we found.

(I don't know why I just wrote found, like anyone's gonna read this, like anyone is left to give a rat's ass if we took it or not. They were all just sitting there in the lot, 4 or 5 big ones, this one was the biggest though, even had some new solar powered panels hooked up on top, We didn't even have to break into the office to get the keys, the plate window out front was smashed. We just walked right in, grabbed all the key rings off the pegs behind the counter and luckily the ones we needed were still there.)

The panels work well enough, we should just stay right here, but I think Mat's worried about the water. There's not a lot left down here...maybe he's hopin' to find some place that maybe the fires in the hills missed.

When everything fell apart there weren't any fire fighters left to put them out...add in some firebugs and some religious freaks who where convinced they could burn the "evil" away....

They burned everything away all right. hundreds of thousands of acres just burning and burning we could see the hills on fire all the way out here in the desert. At night they glowed red...all the way up 'til the rains came in the winter.

A few others are planning on going with us up the hill. Danny and his wife, Erica and her kids, and maybe a few others.

Some are going to try to tough it out here though, maybe they'll have enough water once some of us leave...

Alexis and John were fighting over whether to go or not, he wants to go, in fact she even screamed at him to, we laid awake listening to them fight all night long, but he won't leave without her, he's afraid she won't be here if he comes back.

He's afraid nothing will be. That the desert will swallow up who ever stays behind, or that something worse will...

It's getting darker, but not cooler, I guess I'll try to sleep for a bit.

Mat said we will leave in the morning, since no one wants to drive at night.

~end

Guest post review created for September Zombies event by AimeeKay of How can you help?
© 2011. All rights reserved.

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by AimeeKay of How can you help?
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--~ Book Giveaway courtesy of blogger&author ~--
Play Dead
by Ryan Brown
signup to win this book

~*~
* header image source

=== September Zombies schedule ===

Zombie Tale from: Ty Drago

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by Ty Drago
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Don’t call ‘em “zombies”.

That’s the mantra that every one of us learns on our first day.

I always laughed at the ragged, shuffling stars of all those George Romero movies — hordes of flesh-eating groaners, their expressions blank and their knees and elbows locked. Half the time, they didn’t even look all that dead really. Just kind of gray. And they always seemed to move so slowly!

“Oh no! A zombie’s after us! Um … we better walk a little faster.”

And don’t get me started on the human morons who are being hunted by them. No planning. No tactics. No preparation at all. Just run, run, run and hope to God you don’t hit a locked door or a blind alley, which they always do. Then they turn and stare in helpless horror as the wall of heavily made-up extras crowds in around them and proceeds to chow down — like really, really slow moving piranha.

The “zombie apocalypse”. What a lame way for the world to end.

The real thing, as it turns out, is totally different.

My name’s Will Ritter, and I’m thirteen-years-old. For the last few months, my life has been about fighting Corpses. That’s what we call ‘em: Corpses. Not zombies. Corpses are human cadavers that have been possessed and somehow re-animated by “things” that come from “someplace else”. Wish I could be more specific, but that’s pretty much all we got so far. Alien invaders? Demons from the Pit? Plug in any term you like. The result’s the same.

But while we may not know what they are, we know what they do.


They arrive here with no bodies of their own, just pure dark energy, and so they wear cadavers — kind of like suits of clothing. They look for the freshest corpses they can find. Then they move in and bring ‘em to life and use ‘em to walk and talk, keeping each host until it literally falls apart around them. Then they find another.

Worse, the Corpses have a way to wrap themselves in an illusion of normalcy. Some form of telepathy, maybe. A false face and a false identity that the whole world sees and believes. Then they hide amongst us, holding down regular jobs. Some are cops. Some are shop owners. One of them even ran for mayor.

Your bus driver. Your science teacher. Your next door neighbor. Totally normally looking dudes, right? But underneath, their their skin is bloated purple, fluids ooze from their every orifice, and maggots fill their mouths.

You just can’t see it. But we can.

Some kids — I’m one of the “lucky” ones — develop the ability to See through the Corpses’ illusions, to recognize them for the rotting wormbags they really are. The power kicks in around puberty, usually all of a sudden. One day everything’s fine, and the next the dead are all around you! More than one kid freaks out. I mean, who can blame them?

But freaking out just alerts the Corpses that they have a Seer in their midst. Then they snatch the poor kid, take ‘em off someplace quiet, and —

Corpses don’t use weapons. They use their hands. And their teeth.

And if the poor kid slips away and run home to tell Mom and Dad? Well, Mom and Dad don’t believe. Of course they don’t. Adults never believe kids about stuff like this, right?

And if they do believe, even a little? Then the Corpses kill them, too.

Not many of us get away. But those who do have banded together into a kind of child’s army. We’re runaways, all of us, afraid to go home because we know doing so would put our families in danger. So we hide, moving about at night, trying to stay unseen — and alive. We watch the middle schools, looking for those kids who’ve just gotten the Sight. Then we rush in and rescue them, making them one of us — if we can.

If we’re fast enough.

The Corpses are everywhere. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. More show up every day. They’re infiltrating the schools, the police department, even local government. They hunt us, but that’s not all they do. They also work together, grabbing more and more power, trying to take over. Right now, their invasion of Earth is still pretty small, but it’s getting bigger.

The dead are taking over the world. The apocalypse has begun.

Right now, I’m standing just outside a darkened city alley with three of my friends. We’re armed with water pistols and super soakers. Yep, that’s what I said. Guns are useless against Corpses. So are knives. You can’t kill ‘em. At worst, you can damage their stolen bodies so badly that the thing inside gets trapped and has to lie still until his dead buddies show up to help him.

But you can fight them.

“Now!” Sharyn whispers.

Helene, Dave and me step out onto the alley, bathed in the glow of the overhead street light. In front of us, four Corpses, all of them “wearing” cops, turn and glare. Corpses have milky dead eyes, like the eyes of a doll — but I can almost feel the malice burning in those eyes when they look at us. They hate us. They want to kill us. They want to rip us limb from limb and taste our flesh on their blackened tongues. They have no pity, no remorse, and not an ounce of fear.

“Evening, deaders!” Helene says, raising her soaker.


They come. They don’t shuffle. They don’t moan. Instead, they rush us with horrific speed, hands like rotting claws, their lipless, sunken faces twisted in hunger and rage.

We fire.

Saltwater does funny things to Corpses. It somehow messes up the way the invader inside controls its host cadaver. Hit ‘em in the leg and the leg goes numb. Hit ‘em in the face and they go blind. Enough of it and they fall down, twitching and thrashing like they’re having a seizure. It doesn’t last too long, but it usually lasts long enough.

The three of us hose the Corpses down good. One plows head first into a lamp post. Another starts turning in circles, dragging one leg until I nail him in the ear with a shot from my water pistol and he goes down. The other two collide and fall atop one another, rotting limbs akimbo.

It takes maybe ten seconds. Easy as pie.

Then Sharyn steps out of the shadows and raises her sword. God, how I wish I had a sword! How she came upon it is a long story, but she uses it real well, smoothly loping off the heads of each of the fallen deaders. Then, one by one, she kicks the heads clear of the bodies, a few of which are still twitching. They’re not dead, but they’re out of commission.

The pavement is wet with “Corpse Juice”, the fluid that tends to leak out of cadavers as they decompose. The smell turns my stomach. Jeez, you’d think I’d be used to it by now.

“Four down,” Sharyn announces with a smile. “Now … let’s find out what they were guarding.”

She turns to the police cruiser that’s parked on the street. In the trunk, bound and gagged, we find an eleven-year-old girl. She’s a new Seer, snatched from somewhere in the city and brought here by the Corpses for “disposal”. She looks up at us, her eyes desperate and wet with tears.

I always hate the deaders, but never more than right at this moment.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “My name’s Will, and you’re safe now.”

Helene unties the girl and removes her gag. Her frightened gaze traveles from us to the fallen Corpses and back again. She swallows. “Who …” She swallows again. “Who are you people?”

Sharyn and I swap looks. I sigh. Another runaway. Another reluctant recruit for our child’s army. Another soldier. God how I miss my Mom …

But then I paste on a smile and answer her question: “We’re the Undertakers.”

~end

Guest post created for September Zombies event by Ty Drago, author of The Undertakers: Rise of the Corpses
© 2011. All rights reserved.

Visit Ty:
Book Website
Website
Facebook
Goodreads

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by Ty Drago
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READ more of this tale...

--~ Book Giveaway courtesy of author ~--
The Undertakers
Rise of the Corpses
by Ty Drago
signup to win this book

~*~
* header image source

=== September Zombies schedule ===

Zombie update from: Oklahoma

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by Karin's Book Nook
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I am at the end of my rope. Life is only getting worse everyday. Even in our supposed “safe” communities we are forced to live surrounded by high fences, afraid they will fail at any time.

The Can Heads are taking over more and more territory in the city. Policeman don’t even feel safe on the streets. My next door neighbor, Jack Murphy is a policeman with the NYPD and recently lost his partner in a terrible attack. Jack has to take time off of work just to get his head straight again.

The other day, Jack’s wife came over to let our little boys play and she told me about a place where she and her family are going for a week or so. It is called Paterville Family Camp. It sounds too good to be true. Apparently, families can swim in the lake, take boats out on the water, and get this – enjoy REAL food. They have gardens or something that allow them to provide for the campers. Just the thought of eating a real meal is enough to make me want to pack up the car and go. She left behind a brochure.


As soon as she left I went to the computer to pull up their website. It looks amazing. They have fireworks, bonfires, and movie nights. But, is it really safe?

I’m going to have to talk to my husband about this. Maybe we’ll go with the Murphys.

~end

Guest post created for September Zombies event by Karin of Karin's Book Nook
© 2011. All rights reserved.

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by Karin's Book Nook
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NOW, head over to Karin of Karin's Book Nook for a zombie review of...

Vacation
by Matthew J. Costello

~*~
* header image source

=== September Zombies schedule ===

nom-nom challenge #5

nom-nom challenge #5
zombie lovin'
PRIZE: zombie book of your choice (from book list) and goodies from the Neatorama zombie shop

On the even days at 5am pst during September Zombies I will post a nom-nom task for this challenge giveaway.

-offer ends October 16, 2011

It will be easy.

It will be fun.

BUT, you must complete all 6 tasks:
links will be provided for these as the posts go live

sep 20: #1 say nom-nom
sep 22: #2 design-a-zombie
sep 24: #3 noshing
sep 26: #4 brainzzz
sep 28: #5 zombie lovin' - see task below
sep 30: #6 signup form

FIFTH TASK: 3 parts

1. READ and COMMENT on at least 3 of these zombocalypse updates...

from: Kansas - The Bookish Brunette

from: Afghanistan - Rinni's Playground

from: Washington - Rinni's Playground

from: Southern California - Fishmuffins of Doom

from: Sacramento, CA - Mission to Read!

from: Washington DC - Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia

from: Chicago - The Fashion Planner

from: Tennessee - Castle Macabre

from: Wheeling Hill - Because I Said So!

from: Canada - Snowdrop Dreams of Books

from: Illinois - Mary Ann DeBorde Writes (and Reads!)

from: Utah - Gofita's Pages

from: Mississippi - Book Lover and Procrastinator

from: the Netherlands - Pearls Cast Before a McPig

from: Nova Scotia - Wag the Fox

from: Iowa - the Epic rat

from: Costco - It's On Random

from: Oklahoma - Karin's Book Nook

from: Cabazon - AimeeKay

from: UK - Nocturnal Book Reviews

from: Sacramento, CA pt2

from: New York - La Femme Readers

from: Paranormal Wastelands

2. READ and COMMENT on at least 3 of these zombie tales...

from: E. Van Lowe - Never Slow Dance With A Zombie

from: Joan Frances Turner - Frail

from: Scott Nicholson - Zombie Bits

from: Alex Bledsoe - The Hum and the Shiver

from: Kathleen McKenna - The Wedding Gift

from: E.M. MacCallum - Zombie-Killer Bill

from: Joshua Grover-David Patterson - Mercy

from: Sean Thomas Fisher - Cold Faith and Zombies

from: Susan Dennard - Something Strange and Deadly

from: Rusty Fischer - Zombies Don’t Cry

from: Tonia Brown - Badass Zombie Road Trip

from: Ty Drago - The Undertakers

from: Allyson Bird - Isis Unbound

from: K.A. Schloegel - The Peculiar Superpowers of Eleanor Armstrong

from: Savannah J. Foley - The Dead-Filled Halls

from: Sasha Soren - Random Magic

from: Sal Conte - Toothache Man

3. Comment on this post to let me know you did some zombie lovin'

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* image source from shirtoid - yes you can get this image (without with September Zombies caption) on a t-shirt - please note artwork by K.M.Larwood

=== September Zombies schedule ===

Giveaway: The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia by Peter Dendle

The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia
by Peter Dendle
Zombies are cautionary forms of humankind's most universally cherished ideal--life after death. Often ragged, unkempt, ill-spoken, rotting individuals, zombies (or the post-dead) seem socially awkward in comparison to the more popular and more aristocratic, undead, like Count Dracula and his peers. And so, the humble zombie remains, for the most part, unappreciated and unacknowledged--until now.

No longer will films devoted to them be buried in the last pages of horror movie guides. The exhumation of zombie films from obscurity is accomplished in terrifying detail in The Zombie Movie Encyclopedia.

The first exhaustive overview of the subject, this book evaluates over 200 movies from 16 countries over a 65-year period starting from the early 1930s. It mostly treats feature-length films, covering everything from large studio productions to backyard videography, but also touches on memorable episodes of television series and miscellaneous shorts.

Lengthy entries point out interesting or innovative features of the zombie portrayal in each movie, while an introduction traces the evolution of the genre and interprets the broader significance of the zombie in contemporary Western mythology. Productions credits, a brief plot summary, and alternate titles accompany each entry.

--~ Book Giveaway courtesy of Scott Nicholson ~--
Win a copy of this book!

Open to US ONLY.

Offer ends: October 16, 2011

TO DO:
Visit Scott here #1 OR here #2 and leave him a comment.

AND, let me know where you left your comment and leave your email (if I don't already have it)

=== September Zombies schedule ===