Your Fourteenth Literary Gift of 25 Gifts to Christmas. Author Andy Zach here and today you will laugh!
Why? It’s the My Undead Mother-in-law, Diane Newby, who is here helping a poor cattle farmer in West Peoria. You never knew someone with glowing red eyes could be so entertaining! Your free excerpt is below.
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My past gifts to you are here:
- 25 Days to Christmas – 25 Literary Gifts for You
- Your Second Literary Gift! – 24 Gifts to Christmas.
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- Your Fifth Literary Gift! – 20 Gifts Until Christmas
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- Your Eighth Literary Gift! – 17 Gifts Until Christmas
- Your Ninth Literary Gift – A New Book! – Is it Christmas?
- Your Tenth Literary Gift – More from My New Book!
- Your Eleventh Literary Gift – My Non-fiction Book
- Your Twelfth Literary Gift of My 25 Gifts to You
- Your Thirteenth Literary Gift of My 25 Gifts to You
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Your Fourteenth Gift: My Undead Mother-in-law
Chapter 2 – West Peoria
Richard Felix, the owner of Prairie Cattle Farm of West Peoria, surveyed the fifty head of cattle grazing on the hills of his farm in the Kickapoo River Valley on a frosty February morning. A flicker of motion caught his eye to the left.
One of his cows bawled as a long brown body leapt upon the cow’s back, ran toward the head, and savagely ripped off her ear. Dozens more of the animals attacked the cow’s udder and underbelly.
Dumbfounded, Richard stared as the bleeding cow crumpled to her knees. Were those giant weasels? Rats? He couldn’t quite place them, although they seemed familiar. He ran to the barn and grabbed his shotgun. By the time he came back, the cow had been reduced to a bloody skeleton. Its furry attackers were nowhere to be seen.
Shaking, he dialed the Zombie Turkey Hotline with difficulty. He didn’t know who else to call.
“Zombie Turkey Hotline, Sam Melvin here.”
“Help! Something attacked one of my cows and ate it alive!”
“What? Calm down. Tell me the whole story.”
“There’s not much more to tell. I was looking at my cows this morning in the field, and I saw one get attacked by dozens of furry brown somethings.”
“I’ll be right there.” West Peoria was just a half an hour from Midley.
Cow Death
Sam found Richard in the middle of his field, studying the cow skeleton with another man.
“Hi, I’m Sam Melvin, investigative reporter for the Midley Beacon.“
“Thanks for coming. I’m Richard Felix, the owner of Prairie Cattle Farm. This is Steve Cole, our local animal control officer.”
“Hi. What have you found out?”
“Whatever it was, was amazingly savage. It was like a pack of land piranhas,” Steve said.
“Did you get any footprints?”
“No. Between the churned mud and the frozen ground, I couldn’t find anything identifiable. They were brown furry quadrupeds with sharp teeth, weighing thirty to forty pounds,” Steve said.
“How are you going to catch them?”
“I assume they’re some kind of zombies. No natural animal acts like that. I’ll stake out another cow tonight, surround her with a ring of gasoline, and burn the crap out of them,” Richard said.
The Undead Mother-in-law to the Rescue
“Say, I’ve got an idea,” Sam said.
“What’s that?”
“Mind if I bring a friend who might be able to control these animals?”
“Good luck with that! They’re killers! You see this skeleton? That cow weighed a thousand pounds, and it was reduced to that in two minutes. I wouldn’t want that to happen to your friend.”
“Somehow, I don’t think that’ll happen to her. You see, she’s a zombie, Diane Sydney. She controlled a flock of zombie turkeys last week.”
“Yeah, I think I read something about that. I want her to sign a liability release form if she wants to try anything. I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety on my farm now. You too, Sam, if you stay overnight.”
“OK. Will do.” By this time, dangerous zombie situations no longer fazed Sam.
Sam flew Diane in from Gary on the Midley Beacon’s plane. She arrived at the Peoria International Airport, private aviation, where their plane was based. Sam met her on the cold, dark tarmac. She smiled to the point of wrinkling her red eyes, showing excitement.
Can A Zombie Mother-law-law defeat an unknown zombie?
“Hi, Sam! Thanks for flying me in. I’ve never been in one of these single-engine planes before! I’m thrilled you called me! I’m sure I can deal with whatever these zombies are. I’d hate to see another cow lose its life.”
“You know these things stripped a cow to its bones in two minutes?”
“No problem! It’ll take me less than two minutes to assert my dominance.”
“Good luck—you’ll need it.”
“No luck—just good old zombie perseverance!”
Sam adjusted his night-vision goggles, and he, Diane, and Richard took turns watching the poor old bovine staked out in the field, near where the other cow had died, from an outbuilding. As the gray morning dawned, the furry creatures attacked the cow.
“Oh no you don’t!” Diane shouted and sprang into action. She covered the fifty yards to the cow in world-record time, especially over frozen, snowy ground. She grabbed two of the creatures and smashed their heads together with a splat, like two tomatoes bursting. Dozens of them jumped upon her.
The End of Your Fourteenth Literary Gift
“Which!” Diane grabbed two more from her back, hanging on with their teeth, and hurled them so hard into the frozen ground they each made a red-lined crater.
“One!” She batted two attacking from the front into an oak tree thirty feet away, where they fell, broken.
“Is!” With her other leg, she kicked one biting her calf. It landed a hundred yards away, breaking the ice on the frozen Kickapoo Creek.
“The!” Diane clapped her hands together on one leaping for her throat. The body collapsed with a spray of blood, coating her from head to toe and spraying twenty feet away.
“Boss!” The remaining creatures cowered before her savagery. There was at least three dozen remaining. They rolled over on their backs, exposing their bellies in submission.
“Oh, aren’t you cute!” Diane exclaimed, wiping blood and gore from her face, cleaning her hands in the snow and petting the nearest animal.
“Why, they’re corgis!” Sam exclaimed. “They are cute—when they’re not eating cows. Even with red eyes.”
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