Dark Whispers
Cecily cowers in fear of her master, Lord Miles Rowland. She brings him a platter full of freshly killed meat, the vile creature glares as she sulks away bowing her head. The girl turns the corner and stares down at her rags for clothes. She is disgusted by her appearance, cloth and skin stained with the blood of the kill for her lord and master. She runs out into the courtyard and stands under a cottonwood tree, searching for the only person that cares for her. "Nathaniel!" She runs over to him, giving him a quick hug.












He groans from the pain in his back. His clothes are full of dirt and blood. “What’s wrong now?” He sighs as he runs his shovel in the damp soil besides the multi-body-filled grave.
“Nothing besides the fact that I’m going to throw up from what I’ve been doing all day.”
He snickers. “The usual skinning, quartering, and deboning I take it?”
She snorts, “Yeah,” and makes a face suggesting she is sick to her stomach. “Matilda hates having to kill people as much as me, especially in her kitchen, but she doesn’t want to be eaten.”She shrugs. Cecily leans closer to Nathaniel, and whispers, “I don’t like what he makes us do, if he is a Great Zombie Lord then why doesn’t he do all this himself? I mean look what he’s done to you.” She glances at his back and the cloth wrapped around his neck. “You used to try to flee this place but ever since—“
“Don’t!” he fiercely whispered. “I told you not to talk about that!” he said, turning around to get back to work.
“But it’s true! You can’t run from the fact that he ripped flesh out of your back with his bare hands and slit your throat, leaving you to die!” Her anger filling her to the brim. “Damn it Nathaniel, I’m going to escape from here no matter what, but you can rot here like a pig carcass for all I care!” She stormed off, kicking dirt in his direction with her bare feet.
He froze, and his eyes dulled. Images of what happened flashing in his mind.
‘Calm down Nathaniel, you’re going to get yourself killed if you don’t calm down, you dunce.’ Walking down a passage with my pistol in hand, looking for the bastard that calls himself my master. ‘There he is, the putz.’ I slowly walk around the yard and ease towards the gate as he begins to stir. ‘God damn it.’ I sprint towards the gate. As I run, Lord Rowland jerks up, appearing right in front of me. With his mouth slightly open, the mad zombie slams me to the ground, forcing the pistol out of my hand, and drags me to the wall where shackles are bolted into the stone. I struggle as he flips me over and rips the back of my shirt off. His nails dig into my flesh, tearing piece by piece of my back off. I scream in anguishing pain. Chunks of my muscles fall around me as I lay in a pool of my own blood. He flips me over to face him once more, jolting with pain as my back slammed against the stony ground. His face, now covered in my blood, leans close to mine. He licks the beads of sweat off my face then, touching my neck, he jabs his rigid, sharp teeth into my tissue. The monster begins to move around my neck, cutting my veins as blood seeps down and onto my chest. Struggling to breath he leans to my ear and whispers, “You will only escape one way. Death.”
Shuddering back to reality, he thanks God that Cecily and Matilda had been there to mend him. Nathaniel gently touches his neck and brushes his uneven scars with his fingertips. His face turns to stone as he picks up his shovel.
We’ve been here way too long, slaving for a thing that lures girls into the house, then chains them up to feast on them, Cecily thinks as she walks hunched over to the cellar, where her “quarters” are. She slumps on her cot and thinks of how this all began.
The year was 6024 when she last remembered. Cecily had a great family that loved and cared for her, but that all changed. When she was eight, there was an outbreak of a disease that killed millions of people including everyone in her family besides her sibling and herself. The ones that survived the infection turned into evil, barbarous zombies. If a Lord or King was turned into a zombie from the outbreak, they became Zombie Lords or Zombie Kings. The disease had an effect of terrible boils that popped when you moved; your skin would begin to slide off your warm body and your brain would start to deteriorate. Cecily and her childhood friend, Nathaniel, were taken by a Zombie Lord and forced into slavery and service for him. The Zombie Lord dragged them and beat them all the way to his manor in the cliffs.
The zombie threw them both into the throne room and leisurely walked over to his throne, leaving one empty beside his. As he sat his voice thundered in the room.
“I am Lord Miles Rowland, your master. You will both serve me and do my bidding or I will kill you both without a second thought.” As he spoke, he looked over his new servants. Seeing Cecily, he licked his chapped lips with his black tongue, now without its pink covering.
Thinking back to it never made Cecily feel any better about the situation she was in. She threw her straw pillow against the wall, and began to think of how she, Nathaniel, and Matilda could escape. Suddenly Matilda called down the steps, “Oye lassie, de master wants s’more meat now, you gotta go get that girl from the dungeon.”
“I’m coming!” she yelled back. Cecily began to race up the stairs but then an idea struck her. If she got the keys from Matilda, then she could persuade her and Nathaniel to leave and be free of this hell. She ran to the kitchen, grabbed the keys, and walked in the direction of the dungeon but then changed her path. She began walking to the courtyard.
She grabbed Nathaniel’s hand and dragged him to the side of the yard. “Listen I’m sorry for yelling, but Nathaniel, we can escape now. I have the keys and we can race out of this hell-hole! We can leave! Go and get Matilda ready so we can all be free again!” Nathaniel kissed her forehead.
“Go, I’ll get Matilda ready.” She raced into the house, and then slowed to a walk so she wouldn’t look suspicious. When she reached the dungeon, and thought that she might be able to save the trapped girl as well, she unlocked the door to see the girl. She was too fattened to even walk. The master made Matilda feed her like a pig to be slaughtered for Christmas. The girl was just too large now and too weak to stand. She unlocked her shackles around her wrists and ankles, and just walked away. There was nothing she could do for her now but only hope that she could have some luxury in her last moments of life.
I’m going to end all of this, the trembling female thought. “No more girls will be eaten by you,” Cecily whispered, remembering her little sister, only six when she was eaten by Lord Rowland. She took the sword off the wall, with tears in her eyes, and walked into the throne room. Lord Rowland was turned around, looking out of the window. She saw her chance and plunged the blade into his back. He turned around slowly, staring with fire in his, cold blue eyes. Lord Miles reached around and jerked the sword out of his torso at an angle, slicing nearly half his back in the process. He threw it to the side of the room with a great clatter, now covered in brown liquid that was once crimson.


“You actually thought that would kill me, f*****?” he sneered. Lord Miles breathed, “You shouldn’t have done that you little s***!” He sprang with great haste, on top of Cecily, tearing her white dress to shreds as he clawed at her. His teeth ripped a chunk of flesh from her neck, exposing the jugular vein, now gushing bright red blood. Cecily was screaming with all her might, but Lord Rowland put a quick end to that. He tore the tissue from her face, exposing her jaw. Cracking her skull, he silenced her for good. Within a few minutes she was dead with only bones and scraps of her once-white dress left from the massacre. He stood up and looked in a mirror, revealing his blue and black patched skin from where his makeup was washed away in Cecily’s body fluids. The Lord sighed in annoyance, “The little b**** screwed up my makeup.” He clicked his tongue in disapproval. “Such a pity.” He ordered Matilda to drag her remains out into the courtyard to be buried.
Nathaniel recognized her dress scraps; he took the largest piece and clutched it to his chest.“Why? Why did that son of a b**** have to do this? Why her?” Nathaniel cried out to the setting sky, shaking violently. Roughly grabbing his worn shovel, the shaken man digs his blade into the earth with a new found determination. Dark flames in sorrowful eyes, he buried his best friend, weeping, in a single grave, remembering her life, her memories, and her last fight for freedom. He finished covering the grave in the middle of the night, and fell to his knees, and swore by the stars that he would escape, no matter what the cost may be, for the sake of his lost love.