Zombie Fairy Tales Read online

  Zombie Fairy Tales

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  MOLDY-LOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

  SLEEPING ZOM-BEAUTY

  BEAUTY & THE ZOM-BEAST

  LITTLE RED ROTTING HOOD

  RAPUNZOMBEL

  THE PRINCESS AND THE ZOMB-PEA

  ZOMBIE FAIRY TALES

  Published by Jill Myles at Smashwords.

  Copyright 2010 by Jill Myles

  Art by http://km245.deviantart.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without the author's permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  ZOMBIE CINDERELLA

  MOLDY-LOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS

  SLEEPING ZOM-BEAUTY

  BEAUTY & THE ZOM-BEAST

  LITTLE RED ROTTING HOOD

  RAPUNZOMBEL

  THE PRINCESS AND THE ZOMB-PEA

  Zombie Cinderella

  Cinderella stared down at the parchment invitation in her hands with dismay.

  All marriageable women in the kingdom are invited to the Prince’s Courtship Ball, where he will choose his new wife.

  The timing of it was perfectly lousy. Two days ago, she’d have been able to go to the ball. She would have impressed the prince with her pretty blonde hair and her shy demeanor, and he would have chosen her over all the other marriageable maidens in the land.

  But two days ago, one of her evil step-sisters had hit her over the back of the head with a shovel and tossed her into the rubbish-pile and covered her with compost. Cinderella hadn’t ironed her favorite dress right, and it had made her step-sister quite furious.

  Step-Mama hadn’t been pleased about Cinderella’s unfortunate ‘accident’ at all. It was the waste of a perfectly good unpaid servant, and those were terribly hard to come by. And so, before Cinderella had even been dead for a full day, Step-Mama had hired the local necromancer and risen her step-daughter back from the dead, with quite amiable results. The girl had returned with none of that sassy attitude and toiled endlessly for her family’s benefit.

  It was a win-win situation, really.

  Cinderella’s life had pretty much continued uninterrupted after that, save for the smell that seemed to follow her around, the gaping wound on her head that still oozed upon occasion, and her need to eat raw flesh. But she could still cook, and clean, and help her sisters into their corsets, and Step-Mama was pleased. Having Cinderella back was well worth the price of the necromancer’s rather costly services.

  Of course, no one had factored in that the prince would be interested in seeing all marriageable ladies of the kingdom, or that Cinderella would even want to go to the ball. They had tittered behind their gloved hands when Cinderella picked up the invitation. And when she gestured to her own chest, questioningly, they shook their heads and laughed.

  Not Cinderella. No ball for her. That would simply not do.

  So her stepsisters had put on their best gowns and ridden off with Step-Mama in the family’s finest carriage.

  Cinderella had stayed in the kitchen and mourned. Now she would never see the handsome prince and marry him. It made her sad. She’d tried chasing down a live chicken for her dinner, but rigor-mortis had set into her hips and she couldn’t stagger fast enough to keep up with it. Unhappy, Cinderella returned to the kitchen and settled for chewing on the dead mice hanging out of the mousetraps in the corner of the kitchen. As she ate, she stared at the pretty invitation. The occasional moans of displeasure erupted from her throat, mixed with gas from her decaying innards.

  A burst of light flashed in the kitchen, and she raised her arm to shield her eyes. Something cracked and went loose in her arm, but it still functioned well enough, and she peered around her hand.

  A small, fat woman in a bright pink gown stood there, coughing. A glittery wand flashed in her hand, and she waved the other one to clear the smoke in the room. “Cinderella,” she cried out. “Are you hear, my dear?”

  “Braaaaains,” said Cinderella, shuffling to her feet. She wanted to say hello, but nothing else seemed to come out. “Braaains.”

  The fairy godmother took a step back. “Oh, my.” She stared at the figure of the girl before her, and adjusted a small pair of wire-rimmed spectacles on the tip of her nose. “You’re Cinderella?”

  “Braiiins,” Cinderella said in a small voice, agreeing.

  “Oh dear.” The fairy godmother pocketed the wand and pulled out a small book, licking the tip of her finger and flipping through it. “The guide doesn’t say anything about the undead.”

  Cinderella waited. The small woman pursed her lips a few times, and even turned the book upside down once. Long moments passed.

  Then, finally, the fairy godmother shrugged. “I suppose the rules still apply after all.” She tilted her head and bouncy little gray sausage curls wiggled atop her head. “My name is Muffin. I’m your fairy godmother, and I was sent here to grant your wish, my dear. What would you desire?” Muffin gave a great flourish of her wand as if to demonstrate that she meant business.

  Poor Cinderella knew that if she opened her mouth, only one word would come out. So she picked up the invitation and showed it to the fairy godmother.

  The fairy godmother peered at the document, her eyes moving back and forth as she read. “I see,” she said at last. “You want to go to the ball and meet the prince?”

  Cinderella moaned in a sound that she hoped was agreement.

  There was a pause, and then the fairy godmother sighed. “Well, my dear, I’m going to be very honest. You smell absolutely awful, and I’m not sure that you qualify as marriageable if you’re undead. But if it’s your wish, I’ll help you.” She wrinkled her nose. “First, though, you need a bath and a hairbrush.”

  *~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~*

  Two hours later, the fairy godmother had done everything she could for poor Cinderella. Dressing her had been quite an ordeal, and rather taxing on poor Muffin’s nerves.

  First came the bath and the grooming. It was a bit of a futile exercise, as no amount of magical scrubbing could quite shake the rancid smell of Cinderella’s putrifying flesh from her skin. The solution, Muffin decided, was lots and lots of powder. She covered the poor girl in it from head to toe. “It’s all the vogue in Paris, my dear,” she explained, fluttering her fingers over Cinderella as she dusted her skin.

  Once that was done, there was the matter of her hair, and the gaping scalp-wound that no one had bothered to even disguise. Muffin had to count backwards from a thousand (so as not to lose her lunch) as she teased Cinderella’s blonde hair into a big bouffant large enough to cover the head wound. To help hide the ‘problem area’, she waved her wand and a big fluffy bow tied itself over the pouf of hair.

  A gown of ice blue silk was next, of course. Muffin decided on an empire waistline, so as to hide Cinderella’s bloating middle. The zombie looked quite pleased at the dress, and tried to twirl as she gazed in the mirror, but Muffin put a stop to that right away. “If you fall and break something, my dear, powder won’t cover it.”

  The shoes turned out to be the most problematic of all. Since poor Cinderella spent all her waking hours (which was all hours, really) since her death on her feet, most of the blood in her body had pooled to them, and they were quite bloated. However, she could not go to the ball without shoes.

  Muffin picked up one of the dainty glass slippers and eyed it critically. “I’m afraid we have a bit of a problem, my dear. The wand will only order things in your last known size, and these won’t quite fit.”

  Crack!

  She looked down and saw Cinderella break off her big toe. Crack! The matching one on the other side went as well. Crack crack! The two pinky toes on each foot went next, and after that, the zombie picked up the shoe and slid it on with a wet slurp.

  “Success,” Muffin said in a faint voice, and fanned herself. Thank God she was off the clock at midnight.

  Dressed and ready to go, Cinderella smiled at her fairy godmother. She looked like quite an acceptable vision of loveliness – powdered, her hair teased and perfect, and her dress beautiful enough to match any courtier at Versailles. Now the girl just needed to keep her mouth shut to hide her rancid breath.

  ”Ready to go to the ball, my dear?”

  “Braaains.”

  “Oh, my.” Muffin pursed her lips. “Perhaps you should refrain from talking, my girl. You should work on incorporating an air of mystery. Men like that sort of thing.”

  The zombie smiled shyly in agreement.

  “Now.” The fairy godmother glanced at the window. “Is there another carriage in the stable? No?” Of course not. Nothing this evening had been easy. Muffin went outside and pulled her wand back out of her purse. She scanned the courtyard and spied a vegetable patch nearby. “Get me a pumpkin, my dear.”

  Cinderella returned, a few minutes later, half-rotten pumpkin in hand. Perhaps the poor thing gravitated towards wrongness now. Ah well.

  “Mice?”

  The zombie pulled out a half-gnawed rodent from a pocket of her silk dress. It seemed that Cinderella had been saving a few snacks for later. Muffin blanched and took the mouse between her forefingers and waved her wand at it, and then the pumpkin.

  A few moments later, a carriage and horse stood at the ready
. She just hoped that no one would take a closer look and notice the dead look in the horse’s eye or the fact that the interior of the coach smelled like rotten gourds.

  Cinderella extended both of her arms and began to shamble towards the coach with delight. “Braaaaains!”

  Muffin’s smile faltered as she waved goodbye to her charge. “Have a lovely time, my dear. And remember, you want an air of mystery.”

  The zombie groaned something in response, and as she stepped into the carriage, something snapped. The fairy godmother didn’t stick around to see what it was.

  She needed a stiff drink.

  *~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~**~*~*

  She was still drinking at the fairy godmother bar – Stardust – when her boss came up to her the next morning, newspaper in hand. “Muffin?”

  She glanced up at him blearily, pulling her mimosa closer to her. “What is it?”

  The newspaper plunked down on the bar counter, sticking to the wet rings left from her previous drinks. A quick glance at her boss’s face told Muffin that he was not pleased, so she leaned over to read the headline.

  ZOMBIE ON THE LOOSE AT FAIRY TALE BALL. HANDSOME PRINCE KILLED, RISES FROM THE DEAD.

  Oh, my. That Cinderella knew how to get her man.

  “What does this tell you, Muffin?”

  It told her that the Fairy Godmother Handbook needed chapters on undead. It told her that true love always found a way, even if it involved eating the brain of those you loved.

  It certainly told her that men were stupid, if the prince was fooled enough to let Cinderella get close enough to chew on him.

  But she suspected her boss wouldn’t want to hear any of that. So Muffin picked up her drink and peered up at her boss, squinting through her glasses. She took a slurp of her drink before thinking out her answer, quite carefully.

  “I think it tells me that I need a vacation.”

  Moldy-locks and the Three Bears

  The three bears returned home from a quick run to the grocery store and found the front door ajar. Something slimy covered the door-knob, and a window to the side of the door had been busted out. Grey and fleshy bits had caught on the glass, and flecks of dried blood covered the jagged edges.

  “Someone’s been in our house,” said Papa Bear, the master of understatement.

  Mama Bear frowned at the doorway. “And they’ve made quite a mess, too.”

  Baby Bear clutched at Mama’s paw. Was no one concerned about the sheer amount of blood but him? “What happened?”

  “Hush, Baby,” was all Mama said.

  The Bear family moved further into the house with caution, and as they proceeded, more destruction was evident. The furniture in the living room had obviously been the next stop of the horrific intruder.

  “Someone sat in my chair,” roared Papa Bear, moving over to his massive overstuffed recliner. Dark spatters of blood flecked the back of the seat.

  “Someone’s sat in my chair too,” said Mama Bear. She touched the knitted doilies that covered her floral chaise and frowned at the rusty sludge left behind.

  Baby Bear moved over to his chair, almost afraid to look. “Someone’s been in my chair too,” he cried. “And it’s been torn to shambles!” The small rocking chair had been ripped limb from limb, the wood splintered and filthy with gore. Bite marks covered the wood, as if it had been torn asunder by teeth alone. Whatever it was in the house, it didn’t like Baby’s chair one bit.

  There was a shuffling in the kitchen, and all three bears became instantly alert. Papa Bear took one of the broken chair legs, hefted it like a club, and led the way. Mama and Baby followed close behind him, and the Bear family crept into the kitchen.

  The bloody trail had stopped near the table, leaving a mess of red footprints, but there was no one else in the small, sunny room. Papa moved forward, sniffing, and then made a sound of disgust as he looked at his plate. “Someone’s been eating my porridge!” His spoon was covered in dripping saliva, and the porridge was tainted a slight pink.

  Mama Bear moved forward and made the same disgusted noise. “Someone’s been eating my porridge as well,” she declared, and lifted a long strand of dirty hair from the bowl.

  Baby bear moved forward to check his breakfast. Sure enough, his food had been tampered with. Something greenish-black floated on top of his porridge, and he used his spoon to fish it out. “Someone’s been eating my porridge too, Papa. And they left their finger in it.” He showed the disembodied rotten finger to his father, and the thing twitched. Mama gave a little scream at the sight of it.

  The shuffling sound came again, this time from upstairs. There was a whisper of a voice accompanying it, and a small moan.

  “Someone’s still here, Papa,” Mama said, pulling Baby Bear behind her. “Go and see what’s going on.”

  So Papa hefted the club again and went up the stairs to find the intruder.

  All was silent for a long minute, and then he motioned for the other two bears to come forward. “Someone slept in my bed,” he said, pointing at the bloody handprint on his blankets.

  “Mine too,” Mama said, frowning as she moved to her bed. “There’s a dent in my pillow and it smells like dirt.” She picked up the offending item and tossed it off the bed with a shudder.

  Baby moved over to his bed, noticing a curious twitching coming from the blankets. He could have sworn that he heard low, raspy breath. There was the sickly smell of carrion as he neared it, and he could see a few long hanks of matted blonde hair sticking out from under the covers.

  “Someone’s sleeping in my bed too,” Baby said in a whisper as he moved to the side of the bed. “And they’re still here…”

  With that, Baby Bear ripped back the blanket and revealed the culprit.

  It was Goldilocks, the little girl that lived down the lane. Or, at least, it was once Goldilocks. Half her face had been eaten away by rot, and her hair was mostly a moldy, rusty color, but the figure was the same. Her gruesome face pulled into a delighted smile and she reached her arms out. “Braaaains.”

  Baby Bear rushed to Mama’s side, but it was too late. Goldilocks was up and out of the bed in a flash…

  And she ran out of the house and down the street in search of more human brains, because zombies vastly prefer human brains to bear brains.

  (Come on. What did you think would happen?)

  Sleeping Zom-Beauty

  Prince Charming looked up at the enchanted castle, scrutinizing it, and then checked his hair in the mirrored shine of his blade.

  Who’s the prince, baby? Yeah. He winked at his reflection. Sleeping Beauty stood no chance against one of his looks and bravery. And brains.

  After all, he’d been the first prince to hire mercenaries to take out the fierce dragon that roamed the woods. It had taken over a hundred men to subdue and destroy the creature. Luckily for him (and his pockets), only two came back alive, so he’d only had to pay two fees.

  And now Sleeping Beauty was wide open for business. So to speak.

  All that separated him from the enchanted palace atop the hill was a massive vine wall, and after he fixed his hair, he sheathed his sword and set about to climbing the vines.

  The thorns were thick and scratched at him. Worse than that, the leaves were covered with a slimy gunk that got under his nails. Once he’d scaled to the top of the castle wall (no easy trick), he took a look around the courtyard, gazing at the bodies still fallen in place.

  And then he sat down and gave himself a manicure. His princess might not appreciate a bit of green gunk underneath his princely nailbeds. Lord knew he didn’t.

  Once his hands were presentable again, Charming yawned and scratched his belly, and then drew his sword. He didn’t need it, of course – all the people in the courtyard lay skewed about and unmoving, victims of the fairy curse. Leaves lay scattered over a few of them, and a few of the women had hair plastered in their faces. Most of their garments were terribly out of fashion.

  His first job as prince of Beauty’s kingdom would obviously be to bring style back to the people. Charming suppressed a small shudder as he stepped past a man with tri-colored hose.