As the wonderful Mark Twain wrote, the ‘rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.’

I’m sorry to have been offline for such a long time. I’m not going to go into personal stuff here–I’m sure none of you is interested–but suffice it to say that I had ‘personal reasons’ to be away. Let’s move on from that…

You know how it is. After a while, going back to something you’ve stopped doing for a while becomes almost scary. What will people think of me? Will I still be as good as I was before? What if I lost my mojo?

The longer you leave it, the more overgrown the path becomes. It’s like that email you always meant to send to a friend you haven’t seen in years. If you just walked away and pretended you’d never want to send it in the first place you’d always wonder what would have happened if only…

But just walking away is the easier thing to do: that way you don’t have to face up to the fact that your friend might have moved on, that your friend might not care about you any more.

Well, a long time ago I wrote a story called ‘Nasty Diseases and How to Survive Them’. I circulated a few copies among friends and told them to pass on copies to anyone who was interested.

It was maybe a year after I’d written the thing that I was introduced to a woman by a mutual friend. She began the conversation ‘Oh, you’re the bloke who wrote “Nasty Diseases”! You saved my life!’

Most of me believes she was exaggerating, but I talked to her for a while and apparently she’d been given a copy of the story just at a moment when she was coming out of an awful, messy long-term relationship. Reading the story made her feel like she wasn’t alone in the world and, she said, it helped give her perspective on things.

Ok, so what she said obviously appealed to my vanity. But she did genuinely seem honest. This is something fiction can do: it can help to create emotional connections between people, it can help people learn about human relationships. I don’t know if any of you has read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, but I highly recommend it: I learnt an awful ot about myself and humanity from reading it.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to help or connect with someone like I did all those years ago ever again. But I have two options: never write Undead Flowers again, or come back and give it a whirl.

So, I’m back. We will pick up from where we left off at–mid-story. Don’t worry, I’ll give all my regular readers (well, any who are left!) a recap! But before we start again, I just wanted to say hi and I’m sorry to everyone in the blogosphere whom I’ve not been in touch with for the last few months: six months is an eternity online!

A huge thank you to any of you who kept me in your feed-reader or remembered to look me up! I can’t wait to get back to writing Undead Flowers, reacquainting myself with old friends and getting to know new ones!

Richard

Welcome back, everyone!

I’m very sorry about going offline for two months there. It was the result of ‘unavoidable personal issues’. But I’m back now.

I do hope none of you lost faith and deleted me from your feed reader! If so, there’s a chance you’ll miss the terrifying finale to One of Our Cadavers is Missing and then the next story: Bonehead! Eeek!

Next up, however, will be a recap of the story so far in One of Our Cadavers. And if you’re very lucky, I’ll write you an extra episode! So that’ll make One of Our Cadavers thirteen episodes long! Unlucky for some… but not you, my lovely readers!

Richard

Gagged and bound, Salvatore and Constance were wheeled in. Each was tied to what looked like a giant spit–the sort you’d see a whole pig roasted on. The spits were suspended from a wooden structure on wheels: they looked like perverse movable clothes racks.

I tried to stand up but I was fixed to the chair.

‘I hope you don’t mind that I clamped you to your seats,’ Dame Twilight apologised, ‘but I didn’t want to risk you running off in the middle of our lovely supper.’

Eliza grappled with the metal band around her waist. How had Twilight done it?

‘I distracted you with a mind trick,’ she said in answer to my unspoken question. ‘One of the perks of hailing from Somewhere Unmentionable.’

‘I won’t eat my friends!’ I pushed the chair backwards. It wasn’t fixed to the floor!

‘And how will you stop me?’

By bending double I was able to stand on my legs. ‘I’ll run at you full pelt, for starters.’

The chair was heavy on my back so ‘full pelt’ was fairly slow, but it was still fast enough to knock Dame Twilight off her feet. I lost my balance and fell on top of her.

Eliza made the next move. She kicked at the table. Once. Nothing happened. Twice. It shifted slightly. The third time it toppled over.

Brian too had got to his feet. He made an attack on the zombies. They scattered as he approached.

Brian whirled around to follow them and in the process knocked a zombie carrying a kindling onto the ground, scattering wood everywhere.

The zombies seemed scared and confused. Now was our chance. Now we could escape.

But the moment passed. Dame Twilight pushed me off her and sat upright. ‘Don’t just stand there,’ she ordered her minions, ’secure them!’

Within seconds, zombies had hauled me back to my feet and were standing guard over all three of us. I looked at Twilight and she looked back at me as if I were the most pathetic creature on Earth.

I don’t know what it was about Dame Twilight that put the fear of god into me, but I could see that Eliza and Brian felt the same way. There was something menacing–something dark–lurking there.

We were led by two zombies to the dining room. Four places had been set at the vast dining table. Dame Twilight sat at the head. Brian and Eliza were shown their seats at one side of the table while I was seated alone on the other.

‘I have been investigating the foods you eat in your culture. I do so hope that you enjoy the delicacies my servants have prepared for us.’

She pointed to an elderly zombie standing in the corner. He wore a suit that was rotting but had clearly once been that of a butler. He led two young zombie women in serving us the first course. Prawn cocktail.

‘… So you see,’ continued Dame Twilight twenty minutes or so later, ‘it was simply too expensive for me to live there and what with labour being so cheap here–just the cost of a vial of Zombie Infection–Earth seemed the ideal place. Oh, Mr St. John, you’ve not touched your prawn cocktail. There isn’t something amiss, I trust?’

‘Oh no no,’ I didn’t want to upset her, ‘it’s just that I’m a vegetarian.’

‘A what?’ she creased her eyebrows.

‘I don’t eat meat.’

‘Oh, how odd. Not even prawns?’ She looked at me thoughtfully. ‘That’s a shame. You must go hungry a lot of the time.’

‘Not really no, I–’

‘Yes, I suppose there are a lot of leaves and twigs out there you can eat.’

‘Why did you build the house from gingerbread?’ I tried to change the subject.

‘You mean you don’t use gingerbread? That’s all we ever use in Somewhere Unmentionable.’

The butler whispered something in Dame Twilight’s ear and handed her an electric knife.

‘Aha! The next course is about to be served!’ she turned on the knife, ‘I do hope you like the taste of werewolf!’

‘Please allow me to introduce myself,’ the woman said as she stepped from the shadows, ‘my name is Dame Augusta Twilight and it’s not often that I entertain guests–’

Dressed elegantly in a long black gown, she wouldn’t have looked out of place at an ambassador’s ball. But most of all I noticed her intelligent, piercing brown eyes.

‘So few make it this far with their sanity intact.’ She continued. ‘You three must have very strong willpower.’

‘We might,’ Brian indicated himself and Eliza, ‘but I think our friend Joe is narcoleptic.’

‘Yes, that would work too,’ she paused as if forgetting herself, ‘but where are my manners? May I give you the guided tour of my little house?’

Eliza didn’t move. ‘We’ve already looked, thank you.’

‘I see. I’m sorry, did I do something to offend? You seem upset.’

‘Did you make these zombies?’ Eliza asked.

‘Why yes! I couldn’t have built any of this without them! They are simply wonderful fellows aren’t they?’

‘Do you realise what you’ve done?’ Eliza spoke quietly but with anger in her voice, ‘Zombieism is a plague. Once you create one, they start appearing everywhere. Before you know it there are millions.’

‘It’s quite alright,’ Dame Augusta Twilight clasped her hands in front of her, ‘I’ve been taking all necessary precautions. If you still have concerns, perhaps we could discuss them over–’

‘You can’t control it!’

Brian stepped in front of Eliza, ‘What my friend wanted to ask was, “Who are you and where do you come from?”‘

‘Oh, real estate is so expensive in the dimension I’m from so I thought I’d move into yours.’

‘You’re not from Somewhere Beyond?’ I asked, terrified.

‘Oh no!’ she said with disgust, ‘I’m from Somewhere Unmentionable!’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘You wouldn’t have: it’s rarely mentioned.’

Eliza stepped back in front of Brian and opened her mouth to say something.

‘If you are going to say something objectionable,’ Dame Twilight stared at Eliza with her powerful eyes, ‘please reconsider. I would hate for you to make me angry. Especially so soon before dinner.’

We had let Brian go first into the house. The entrance hall which greeted us was grander than anything I’d seen in the most stately of stately homes. Everything was made of candy–even the ‘paintings’ on the wall turned out to be made of jelly beans.

Brian had called out a couple of times, but there was no one at home.

‘I suggest we split up.’

‘No, Brian, we’re not going to split up,’ I found Brian intensely irritating, ‘haven’t you ever seen any horror films? The moment we split up we’re going to be picked off one by one by some evil, scary thing. We stick together.’

‘This way, I think,’ Eliza’s calming voice broke the tension, ‘I think I heard something.’

She led us through a dining room, down a corridor and then down some stairs. She has really good hearing, I thought.

The kitchen was hot. There were several ovens, all cooking at full blast. And working around them–like a swarm of bees–were twenty or thirty zombies. Some were mixing ingredients, others rolling out dough before cutting out shapes.

Others were stirring bubbling pots of sweet-smelling goo.

‘What are they up to?’ I mused.

‘Cooking.’

‘Yes, I can see that, Brian. But why and what?’

But Brian ignored me, ‘Hello!’ he announced, ‘We come in peace!’

I nearly laughed at his sci-fi attempt to ingratiate himself with the zombies. But they didn’t respond to us. We left them to their work as we explored the rest of the house.

While most of the giant building was empty, occasionally, we’d find a room where zombies were pasting strips of licorice to a wall, using it as wallpaper; or where they were making furniture out of hard toffee. There were even zombies working out in the garden, erecting trees made of sugar and water fountains made of cake.

Uncertain what to do next, we made our way back to the entrance hall.

‘Aaah!’ said the woman who was waiting there for us, ‘I see my guests have arrived at last!’

Someone slapped my face. That’s how I woke up.

‘Ok, ok, you can stop slapping me now!’ Anna seemed to be enjoying doing that rather too much.

‘He’s awake!’

Eliza came came over at Anna’s call, ‘The ghosts led us here.’

I sat up, ‘How did you get me here?’

‘We dragged you,’ explained Anna, ’sorry about any scratches.’

Why was Anna being so cold? ‘You’re Brian, aren’t you?’ Anna nodded. ‘You know you’re much less attractive when you’re Brian.’

‘But you both obviously needed my help,’ he said. ‘Stand up, Joe, we need to keep moving.’

‘Where are we?’ I mumbled.

‘Completely lost,’ shrugged Eliza.

‘Any sign of Salvatore or the zombie?’

‘None,’ Brian seemed impatient to get moving.

I took my phone out my trouser pocket. No reception, typical. I held it up in the air. ‘Well that’s marvellous, isn’t it?’ I flipped it shut and put it away, ‘Where to now?’

‘I’m guessing that we follow this,’ Brian pointed behind a tree I couldn’t see.

When I’d taken a few steps toward him I saw the brilliant white icing on the ground. Someone had spread it out deliberately–it was a path. How odd. To either side, giant red and white striped candy canes marked the edges and from each hung a Jack-’o-Lantern carved with a friendly face to light the way.

Wordlessly, Brian led us along it.

The path wasn’t long. Once we had gone around a few bends we saw the house. Even before we got there, the smell filled my mind. All I could think of was Christmas.

‘Why would someone build a giant gingerbread mansion in the middle of a forest?’ puzzled Brian.

It was an awesome sight. Brightly-coloured candies and sweets covered the house. There were sugar-icicles dangling from the eaves. A solid sugar cat eyed us watchfully by the front door.

‘We should go in,’ Eliza didn’t sound certain.

‘Is anyone else having flashbacks to childhood?’ I asked. ‘Whatever you do, don’t eat anything and don’t climb inside any ovens!’

At first I thought it was just a wind in the trees. But the wind became a howling. Lights swirled around us that solidified into what looked like stereotypes of ghosts. They spun around us at an incredible speed.

The light became brighter and the howling became a continuous high pitched scream.

I wanted to run, but Anna and Eliza held me tight. ‘Don’t panic,’ Anna looked at me through gritted teeth, ‘We have to stay calm.’

I tried to focus on the amorphous bodies. I could see their faces, contorted in pain. They seemed to be saying something. But all that came out was that horrible scream.

‘What are they saying?’ I asked. But they couldn’t hear me. ‘What are they saying?’ I shouted again.

‘They are afraid,’ called Eliza, ‘very afraid.’

I knew I needed to focus on something, not to let the terror take control of me. Hopeless, was that it? Homeless? Hellmouth?

‘We have to ignore them!’ Somehow Eliza’s foreign accent was amplified the louder she talked. ‘We have to keep on moving.’ She took our hands and led the way.

The spinning bodies gave me vertigo. I stumbled.

‘We should sing a song!’ piped up Anna, ‘That’ll help focus our minds.’

‘I can’t sing!’ I cried. I was starting to feel nauseous.

‘That doesn’t matter!’

‘And I don’t know any songs!’ I couldn’t see any more. I felt my feet being dragged along by the others.

‘You must know some songs!’ Eliza dragged me on.

‘I like Joy Division.’ The faces pressed in on me.

‘Who?’ Anna pulled in the other direction. Everything around me was confusion.

‘What about… what about David Bowie?’ I couldn’t get the screaming out of my head.

‘Did he sing Little Drummer Boy?’

I felt myself falling. But I never seemed to hit the ground. For a moment my head was filled with a vision of fire. I wanted to scream. Just as I passed out, I could swear I saw Bing Crosby standing by a piano.

The corpse continued to push its way out of the ground.

‘I assume he’s going to make a break for it once he’s free?’ Salvatore turned to Eliza who then nodded, ‘Ok, then we should track it…’

‘You’re not going into the woods?’

‘Yeah, we’re not going into the woods, are we?’ I asked, echoing Eliza.

Salvatore sighed, ‘We have to find out where they’re all going.’

The corpse stopped for a moment and looked round at us. He seemed to realise we were talking about him.

‘But what if we don’t come back out again?’ I pleaded. At that moment the corpse started wheezing and grunting again as it tried to break free.

‘Constance, how do you feel about a quick jaunt around the woods?’

‘Do I have to take my clothes off in front of every one?’

‘No, you can go behind a gravestone. No one will look, will they?’ Salvatore looked me right in the eye.

Once he was freed up to his waist, the corpse was able to bound free and began to hobble as quickly as possible to the woods. ‘He’s got a bit of a head start, but we’ll catch him up easily.’ Salvatore started to undress as Constance ducked behind a large tomb.

‘We’ll follow the scent,’ Salvatore explained to us, ‘and you can bring up the rear in case we need backup!’

I wanted to complain, but Salvatore had already transformed into a werewolf and within seconds was leading Constance into the woods.

‘I guess we do have to follow them?’

Anna rolled her eyes, ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

‘I’m just going to stay here and look after the bar,’ Hudson shifted uneasily.

Although we made a brave show of following the corpse, Salvatore and Constance into the woods, Eliza, Anna and myself all held hands as we disappeared into the blackness of the trees.

‘See, there was nothing to worry about!’ laughed Anna as our eyes adjusted to the darkness. But a few minutes later it started and there was a lot to worry about.

‘It’s coming from over here!’ Hudson called as he ran over to a nearby grave.

‘Not again,’ groaned Eliza, ‘why does this always have to happen in my graveyard?’

We crowded around the headstone. The noise was definitely coming from below. Guttural, subhuman noises. I looked at my friends: the tension was palpable. It could only be a matter of seconds before the corpse broke loose.

I stared at the ground, looking for a finger or head breaking through. Nothing. Instead, the pained moaning carried on. After a few minutes I looked around.

‘They usually come out faster than this,’ explained Eliza.

‘Must be a weedy one,’ Salvatore quipped.

I almost felt embarrassed listening to the noises–they sounded rather too personal, if you know what I mean. I crossed my fingers and hoped that he’d break free soon.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ we were all startled by the appearance of Constance behind us, coming from the church. She looked crestfallen. ‘Salvatore said you’d be here and you wouldn’t mind if I joined you?’

I felt bad for her. She hadn’t settled in yet. Hadn’t got used to not being able to go back to her old life. We were the nearest things to friends she had but we barely knew her.

An almighty wheeze emitted from the grave. Constance looked rather confused.

‘It’s great to see you, Constance,’ said Anna, ‘we’re just waiting for a corpse to reanimate itself.’

‘Aaah,’ she didn’t seem reassured, ‘and this sort of thing happens a lot, does it?’

‘In this neck of the woods,’ Salvatore was engrossed with the grave, as if he were watching his favourite TV show, ‘not for 40 years.’

‘And you were there were you?’ she smiled, ‘You must be older than you look!’

Before Salvatore had the chance to reply Hudson called out: ‘A finger, a finger! I see a finger!’

Slowly the finger gave way to two, then a hand and then another. Minutes later, a half-decayed head popped out and stared at is.

Eliza looked it in its one good eye, ‘You took your time!’