A Darkly Humorous Series Of Horror Fiction

Zomtastic by Jack D. McLean

Series Excerpt

Robert was about to turn into his street when curiosity got the better of him.

He decided however far-fetched it might seem that his uncle’s ideas could bear fruit, he had to investigate the possibility. He drove past the turning he normally took and proceeded further along the A232 towards Sutton, where his uncle lived. He didn’t bother calling ahead to check whether his uncle would be at home, because he was always at home. Uncle Ted never went out, except to the local shops to buy food and toilet paper. His larder was always bulging and he had a cupboard under the stairs which was jam-packed with Andrex, but still he insisted on venturing out and buying more. Occasionally he hinted he was preparing for some kind of apocalypse and Robert should do the same. Anyway, he was seldom gone for more than half-an-hour. Ted didn’t like to be parted from his precious work for long.

The sky was a cloudless powder-blue, which somehow made Robert feel optimistic, although, as he would have been the first to admit, he had little reason to be.

The engine in his rusting Ford Focus spluttered now and again because the car needed a service. Robert had been putting that off for months because of the expense. He dared not hope his uncle’s discovery would be of any use, but if it was, he told himself, he’d be able to afford more than a service. He’d be able to afford a brand new car, and a bloody good one at that.

He allowed himself the luxury of a few fantasies about being promoted over his arch-rival Freddy Barnes and his tyrannical boss Geoff, and making their lives miserable, then buying an Aston Martin with his pay rise and parking it ostentatiously in the company car park between Freddy’s and Geoff’s cars. He pictured himself rising to become the Managing Director of FRTV, and, on the back of that, landing a new job as the Head of BBC or Sky. The televisual world would be his oyster, he thought, if he could just get those old Floyd Rampant cookery shows to pull in the viewers. It wouldn’t be long before the networks would be fighting over him and he’d be able to name his own terms.

By the time Robert had reached the road his uncle lived on, he’d worked himself up into such a lather of excitement with his fantasies about being promoted over Freddy Barnes and his Boss Geoff that he pulled into his uncle’s drive at number forty-one Acacia Avenue a little too quickly, and he veered onto the half of the drive belonging to his uncle’s neighbour who lived at number forty-three.