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red handle on the floor by her bed.
    Gary R. Hoffman has taught school, been self-employed, and traveled in a motor home. He has published or won prizes for over 300 short stories, poems, and essays. www.garyrhoffman.com.

THEY WON’T GET US
     
    T. J. REED
     
    Sweat dripped down his forehead, between his eyes, and off the tip of Brian’s nose. The pressure was getting to him. From the corner of the living room he could hear the whimpering of his two children, Amy, ten, and Sean, nine. They were hiding in the closet, just as he had told them to. Lying unconscious on the living room floor was his wife Tory, dried blood matting her hair against her head. Brian stood up from his recliner and shuffled to the window for the third time in as many minutes and parted the curtains. The dead were out there. Standing behind cars parked in front of his suburban home.
    “Daddy, we’re scared,” Amy whispered.
    “I know. So am I, baby. But I won’t let them get us.”
    Brian picked up his shotgun that he had propped against the wall next to the window. He could start shooting in hopes of thinning the herd outside, but he was afraid the noise would only bring more of the ghouls to his home. He counted them again. Fourteen .
    The masses were growing, and they were surrounded. At least that is what one of the walking dead had said. Brian had been surprised to learn that they could talk. The zombie’s booming voice had sounded like God himself, but God wasn’t in the business of killing and eating his family, as were the maggot sacks outside his once-quiet home.
    Tory began to stir from her slumber on the floor.
    “Brian . . . what happened?” Then she was out again.
    Brian raised the shotgun, and aimed at his wife’s head. He knew there was only one way out for him and his family.
    “No! Daddy, please! ” Amy cried to her father.
    “I’m sorry, pumpkin, but this is the only way. I will see you on the other side. Now close your eyes and hold your brother. Hold him tight! When you get to heaven, Mama and I will be right behind you, baby. Go ahead now, close your eyes, and wipe away those tears.”
    Brian shot his wife first, then both of his children. As he raised the shotgun to place it in his mouth, the living room window shattered in. The shots had excited the dead outside, and now they were flooding into his house in hopes of getting Brian and his family. But Brian knew he had cheated them out of that satisfaction. He pulled the trigger as they grabbed him and dragged him to the floor, but nothing happened. The gun had jammed.
    The zombies rolled him onto his stomach and placed cuffs on him.
    “We were too late, sir. They’re dead, the wife and the kids. The whacko shot them. Oh my God, he shot them.”
    T. J. Reed loves to tell stories and entertain his friends with his tales of zombie survival. He lives in Fredericktown, Missouri with his beautiful supportive wife and four wonderful children. He also is a Combat Engineer in the Missouri National Guard with two combat tours to Iraq. Visit him at http://theywontgetus.blogspot.com.

THE SHACKLES
     
    JAMES S. DORR
     
    He had her at last! He’d waited until day, when she would be asleep, and dragged her torpid body to the chair, sitting it upright, then locked on the shackles.
    Slowly, the vampire woke.
    “Sandor,” she said in her heavily accented voice. “What is the meaning of this?”
    “Countess,” he answered, “you know what I want. You have promised many times—life eternal.”
    “I do not make such promises to servants, nor would I let myself be forced to keep them. I am Countess Marya Zaleska, the daughter of Dracula himself! How dare you—”
    “Remember, Countess, I helped you to steal back your father’s corpse, and then to burn it. You needed me then. And afterward you have not turned me away. I know your secrets.”
    The Countess pulled against her chains. “Perhaps not all of them, Sandor,” she said, “but no matter. Even if I should promise