That Risen Snow: A Scary Tale of Snow White and Zombies (Wattys 2014 Award Winner)

Chapter Five

Grouchy

GROUCHY BANGS A FIRE poker against the front door, each blow jarring his finger bones. His Snowflake responds with hissing and thumping until her onslaught abruptly stops. Next to him, Snoozy continues drumming spoons on the wood with an irritatingly pleasant rhythm.

He touches Snoozy’s belly. “Something’s wrong.”

They listen.

Silence.

Grouchy sprints to the kitchen window, just as Blushful spills through the frame. His right hand, now missing two fingers, sprays dark blood over the walls.

Blushful yells Dim’s name.

What follows is chaos.

Snoozy jogs into the room, sees Blushful’s wound, and promptly vomits. Blushful again yells, “Dim.” Snow’s blood-crusted face appears in the window. She grabs for Blushful, but Grouchy yanks him away and slams the shutters in Snow’s face. He steps backward, slips in Snoozy’s mess, and lands flat on his back. Vomit splashes, stinking of sour bile. Snoozy giggles, and Grouchy hears only the snide laughter of his captors in Planchette Prison. The noise becomes a lit match dropped into Grouchy’s belly. There, his anger explodes. He shoves Snoozy into the dining table. Merry—smiling like an idiot—wedges himself between Grouchy and Snoozy.

Over Merry’s shoulder, Grouchy watches Coughy approach Blushful and hand him a towel. Blushful nods, wraps the towel over his hand. With Blushful unaware, Coughy raises a kitchen knife.

Grouchy shouts Coughy’s name, shoves Merry aside, and tackles the knife-wielding dwarf. They topple sideways into the counter, and the blade clangs to the floor. Before Coughy can react, Grouchy tucks him into a headlock—forearm wedged into his throat. Coughy gasps.

Merry kneels over Blushful.

“Careful, Merry,” Coughy rasps.

 “What the hells, Cough?” Grouchy flexes his forearm.

 Coughy sputters, “He’s been bitten.”

 “Looks fine to me.”

Blushful pushes Merry away. “I’m in no way fine, but I’m not one of those things.” He gestures toward the window. “Not yet. Grouchy, let Coughy go.”

 Grouchy relaxes his arm. Coughy falls to his knees and rubs his throat. Across the kitchen, Snoozy leans against the counter, his jaw constantly working. What is he chewing? The kitchen stinks of puke. Grouchy pulls off his stained padding and sits. His back throbs from the fall.

“Blush, what in the bear’s bouncing balls happened?”

 Blushful explains how the Prince attacked him and Dim. “Dim helped me through the window and gave me the Prince’s sword.” Blushful points at the blue blade, speckled with blood, now lying on the kitchen counter. Its ornate, twisted handle reminds Grouchy of a frozen river. “Then Bones grabbed Dim. Bit him. He’s dead. Or one of them.”

“And then there were five.” Grouchy shakes his head. “But how? The Prince is dead.”

 Nobody speaks. Outside, Snow and Bones claw and pound against the doors and window. The Prince moans.

Blushful clears his throat. “Last thing Dim said was, ‘Walking dead.’ If he said the Prince was walking dead, I believe him.”

“How can a dead body walk without a soul?” Merry says.

Coughy shrugs. “Who says humans have souls?”

“They do.” Grouchy shoots Coughy an eyeful of stink. “They do.”

Blushful turns to Coughy. “If Dim pushed me in here, he thought I was safe. He wouldn’t endanger you.”

Coughy lowers his eyes, wipes his nose. “How does the wound feel?”

Blushful considers his finger stumps. “Damnedest thing. Doesn’t hurt at all. It’s numb.”

“Shit,” Grouchy says. “We need a new plan.”

“No, we don’t,” Coughy says, his voice rough as sandpaper. “This isn’t a project. This isn’t like digging a hole. We’re in the hole. You have to see this thing for what it is: a disease.” Coughy stands. “Magic or no, it’s a disease. It is spread by biting, so bodily fluids are the carrier. We must assume that any fluid—blood, saliva, sweat, piss, tears—can infect. The infection has two phases, what we’ll call hot and cold. In the hot phase, the infected are wild and frenzied—at their most dangerous. If they’re killed in the hot phase, like the Prince, they enter the cold phase. They keep coming. We have no reason to believe they’ll ever stop.” He points at Blushful. “He was bitten by a cold infected. We must assume that he’ll turn, too, eventually. We must restrain him, just in case.”

Blushful waves wearily, trembles. “Fine. Just give me a blanket.”

Coughy continues. “Dr. Killington may be able to cure this disease, but our first step is containing it.”

“No.” Grouchy points a stubby finger at Snoozy. “Our first step is watching pukey-pants here clean up his damn mess.”

Coughy ignores Grouchy. “The longer the infected run free out there, the more the disease spreads.”

“Can we not call them ‘the infected’?” Grouchy says.

“Horrors,” Merry says, again rubbing his black stone. “We’ll call them Horrors.”

The dwarfs exchange a look. Grouchy hates it when Merry makes a good suggestion. Still, Horrors. Bones would appreciate that.

He nods. “So where the hells do we contain these Horrors?”

Coughy rubs his throat. “We let them in here.”