Come Selahway With Me…

This week I’m taking another bit from a horror story, but it’s somewhat different than the other-worldly fiction of The Invisibles. This piece is from Candles, which can also be found in my collection Lost in the Shadows. It’s a zombie story set against the backdrop of Christmas Eve, where a widowed mother with two small children struggles to keep some sort of sanity and normalcy while the hordes lurk outside their shack door. She’s also dealing with a massive amount of guilt about those in her family that didn’t make it, and the fact that she’s slowly fallen for the man who inadvertently came to her and her sons’ rescue. It’s a little more survival/situation oriented, and set against the backdrop of the holiday season (specifically an advent wreath ceremony),  and the meaning of faith in general.

Plus, you know, zombies.

In this bit, Jaime and Grant have finally gotten the boys to sleep, and Jaime’s taking the first watch. She’s left to gather her own maelstrom of thoughts and deal with what’s left of her shattered sense of the world. And then she notices what’s waiting right outside for them all.

The Eight:

Her eyes wandered down to the window. Pressed up against the glass was a ghastly, decomposing face. The nose was turned up and his left cheek had been stripped to the bone. One eye looked to be half-eaten, and the other stared blindly. Its mouth drooled black ichor onto the glass from over stubs of teeth. A dark tongue that had chunks out of it was pressed against the window, frozen there. From how immobile it was, the whole creature had frozen right outside their hiding place. Over his shoulder, though, Jamie could just barely make out the approaching forms of at least five more.

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Blurb:

Journey with authors Selah Janel and S.H. Roddey to a world where every idea is a possibility and every genre an invitation. In this collection of forty-seven short stories, lines blur and worlds collide in strange and wonderful new ways. Get lost with the authors as they wander among fantasy, horror, science fiction, and other speculative musings.

Shadows can’t hurt you, and sometimes it’s all right to venture off the path.