Necro Files: Two Decades of Extreme Horror

Elizabeth Massie is a Scribe Award-winning and two time Bram Stoker Award-winning author of horror novels, short fiction, media tie ins, historical novels, contemporary mainstream fiction, and units and features in American history textbooks, among other things. Her first love is horror, and since 1984 she has had over 100 horror shorts in numerous magazines and anthologies as well as 5 horror collections and 7 horror novels published by Berkley, Simon & Schuster, Carroll & Graf, Leisure, and others. Recently, some of her works have begun appearing in e-book form through Crossroad Press and Necon E-Books. These include her Stoker-winning Sineater, her collections The Fear Report and new collection Afraid, and a new mainstream novel, Homegrown. Currently she is hard at work on a new zombie novel (as of yet untitled) set in the wild mountains of western Virginia. Beth lives in the Shenandoah Valley with the talented illustrator Cortney Skinner. She loves hiking, camping, chai, and World’s Softest Socks. She thinks cheese is the food of nightmares. I mean, come on. It’s old, rotted, coagulated milk. What’s not to fear? Her website is: www.elizabethmassie.com.

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“Abed” has had a rather controversial life. Following the initial publication in Still Dead, it was rejected for a later zombie anthology (as a reprint) because the publisher (not the editor) thought it was too graphic. Twice, independent movie makers had to shelve it because others who were to be involved with the production got cold feet and said they just couldn’t go that far. Now, however, it looks like it may be made into a short film … fingers crossed. (My preference is that most of what goes on in the story will happen “off stage”; you’ll know what I mean once you’ve read it.) Personally, I see it as a sad story of isolation, despair, and resignation … but it’s all wrapped up in a pretty graphic package. :) In a recent interview, John Skipp said, “Elizabeth Massie’s ‘Abed’ is probably still the hardest-punching zombie short story I’ve ever read.”

Meggie’s a-line dress is yellow, bright like a new dandelion in the side yard and as soft as the throats of the tiny toads Meggie used to find in the woods that surround the farm. There aren’t many stains on the dress, just some spots on the hem. Mama Randolph, Quint’s mother and Meggie’s mother-in-law, ironed the dress this morning, and then gave it to Meggie with a patient and expectant smile before locking the bedroom door once more. Meggie knows that Mama likes the dress because it isn’t quite as much a reminder of the bad situation as are the other blotted and bloodied outfits in Meggie’s footed wardrobe.

From the open window, a benign breeze passes through the screen, stirring the curtains. But the breeze dies in the middle of the floor because there are no other windows in the room to allow it to leave. The summer heat, however, is quite at home in the room, and has settled for a long stay.

There has been no rain for the past fourteen days. Meggie has been marking the days off on the Shenandoah Dairy calendar she keeps under her bed. Mama has not talked about a grandchild in almost a month now; Meggie keeps the calendar marked for that, as well. Mama Randolph’s smile and the freshly ironed dress lets Meggie know that the cycle has come ’round again.

Meggie moves from the bed to the window to the bed. There is a chair in the comer by the door, but the cushion smells bad and so she doesn’t like to sit on it. The mattress on the bed smells worse than the chair, but there is a clean comer that she uses when she is tired. She paces about, feeling the soft swing of her hair about her shoulders as she rocks her head back and forth, remembering the feel of Quint’s own warm hair in the sunlight of past Julys and the softness of the dark curls that made a sweet pillow of his chest.