A sacrifice must be made…

“I love you,” he lied, pushing his way inside.
She didn’t stop him, tolerating his bullshit, and bearing the pain of his ‘young love’.  Her fingers dug into the cold dirt, pulling up clumps of grass as he grunted and moaned and stabbed at her with his member.  This isn’t love, she thought, this is what I have to do.  She wished it to be over and wanted it to stop, and she could feel that he was almost there.  One more stab and he’d be a limp dick on top of the world.
The trees around her seemed to move, walling the lover’s off from the rest of the world.  Their bark; dry, cracking.  Their branches hung like tree-brown icicles ready to fall–reaching skyward than realizing it was too far away, so why bother.
He bucked and writhed in her, moaning in relief, as his seed sputtered out like the spit from his mouth.  He pulled himself out, instantly limp and leaned against the tree to his back.  He shuffled around in his pants pocket and found a smoke.  She lay there, letting his seed drip out.  She could feel the grass against her nakedness, climbing up into her to gather his seed.  She smiled.  It was working.  She sat up looking at the boy, smiling for the first time since they came out here.  He found his lighter, smiling back at her with a bent cigarette dangling off his lip.
“They won’t like that,” she said to him.
“What’s that?  Who’s they,” he lit the cigarette.
“The trees,” she said.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were a hippie-chick,” he smiled.
“You should’ve gotten to know me better,” she stopped smiling.
“I thought that’s what I just did.”
“Hmm,” she looked up at the trees.  “Is that what you did to Mary?  Got to know her?  It was right here, too, wasn’t it?”
“Hey, wait, that was an accident.  I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You should’ve gotten to know her.  She loved you.  You would’ve known she had a sister.  You would’ve known she had dreams.  She was going to be something…something special,” she began to cry.
“Stop this!  J-Just shut your mouth, you don’t know anything,” the boy screamed.
A tree branch swatted the cigarette from the boy’s mouth, cutting his lip.  He yelped.  The trees had moved.  The branches moved in the air like snakes, hissing, rattling, full of venom.  They struck like lightning, wrapping around his throat, his wrists, his legs, and his limp dick.  He couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, but he wanted to.  The ground began to rumble.  The roots made their way to the surface, ripping the boy free from the branches, allowing his screams to break the silence for a moment as the roots pulled him under.  Then, silence.
She walked away, the trees parted, they got what they wanted and in return she did too.  She looked back, and a new sapling was breaking through the dirt.

* * * * *
About the author

Steve Wands lives in New Jersey with his wife and son.  He’s a comic book letterer for DC Comics by day, and an artist and writer by night.  He drinks massive amounts of coffee, and sleeps very little.  He is the author of Stay Dead: The Stranger and Tunnel Rats, Modern Nightmares, Damaged, and plenty of short stories.
http://www.stevewands.blogspot.com

Discover other titles by Steve Wands at Smashwords.com: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/stevewands

Brian Keene, one of my favorite writers (author of such titles as Dark Hollow, The Rising, City of the Dead, Dead Sea, Urban Gothic, and plenty more) took the time to ’sit down’ with me for a bit and talk about his upcoming comic book series–THE LAST ZOMBIE.

Steve: Mr. Keene, you have a new comic project hitting shelves soon, called The Last Zombie which will be in stores on June 30th. What can you tell us about The Last Zombie that would compel readers to pick it up?

Brian: It takes place after the zombie apocalypse — after the undead have rotted away into nothing, head shot or not. The survivors emerge to find civilization in ruins. There are roving gangs to deal with. Despotic leaders. Environmental disasters like oil slicks, forest fires and melted down nuclear reactors. Earth is one big biohazard. Disease runs rampant (and the virus that caused the zombies might still be lurking out there, too). If you’re a fan of post-apocalyptic films like the Mad Max trilogy, then you’ll like this.

Steve: There’s quite a number of zombie related books and comics on the shelves as it is, among them, is fan favorite, The Walking Dead. What does The Last Zombie bring to the table that they can’t find in these other books?

Brian: The aftermath. It would be silly to write just another zombie comic. We already have two wonderful zombie comics – The Walking Dead and Crossed. Nobody is going to do those better, and to try would just bring repetition. So instead, I’m trying something different, by taking a look at what happens after the apocalypse. How does humanity rebuild? Indeed, can they rebuild at all, with another zombie virus outbreak still a distinct possibility?

Steve: Your “zombie books,” The Rising, City of the Dead, and Dead Sea have earned you the “zombie guy” label, but to some discord among your readers ((spoiler alert*), the zombies depicted in those books are essentially demons, and some readers have split hairs over whether or not they can be labeled zombies at all). What type of zombies can we expect to see in The Last Zombie?

Brian: Well, Dead Sea did feature the more “traditional” zombie (if a walking corpse who wants to eat your face can be seen as traditional). The zombies in Dead Sea were the result of a virus. They were slow and stupid, nothing more than dead eating machines. The undead in The Last Zombie are the same type.

Steve: Is The Last Zombie a fixed series? Will it end by a certain issue, or be ongoing pending sales?

Brian: I’ve planned a fifty-issue story overall. Each five-issue limited series will make up one chapter of the overall saga. I hope sales are strong, but even if they are, I have a definitive end-point in mind fifty issues from now.

Steve: Will the series include any characters/locations from the Brian Keene universe? Any chance of a satyr wandering about looking for love?

Brian: You never know. If I tell you now, I’d spoil things for you. (laughs)

Steve: Are there plans to produce any merchandise related to the series–posters, action figures, t-shirts, busts, etc?

Brian: No plans at this point, but I’m sure we would if there’s a demand.

Steve: Well, I know I’d want a shirt at the least! Will The Last Zombie be available as a collected edition at some point? Should readers wait for the trade or jump in on the single issues/periodicals?

Brian: In truth, it’s too early to say. I certainly hope they’ll be collected, but you never know. I’m still waiting for Cullen Bunn’s The Damned and Steve Gerber’s Hard Time to finish being collected. Good thing I bought the single issues when they came out, because it’s been years. Hey, you work at DC, don’t you? Tell them to get on the stick and collect the second half of Hard Time!

(Steve: I have no idea what the hell they’re waiting for on that!–no excuse for that.)

Steve: What else are you working on that readers can look forward to in the near future? Any more plans for comic books? Any more zombie stories rattling around in that bourbon-doused brain of yours?

Brian: Oh, yeah. I’m always busy working on something. There’s some more comic stuff in the pipeline, but I can’t talk about it yet. And I’m currently working on two novels: Entombed and Hole In The World. I work on one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

Steve: Well Hole in the World is a great title–I’m already intrigued.

I’d like to thank Brian for taking the time to give me and you the lowdown on The Last Zombie. I know I’ll be picking up issue one and I hope you do too.

You can pre-order The Last Zombie here.

Brian has a contest going on over at his website where you can win a chance to be in the comic, details here: http://www.briankeene.com/?p=3882