Scene 1 of The Skull-Faced Boy, a Short Story by David Barr Kirtley

The audio for this entire story is available for free from the Pseudopod horror podcast. To listen, visit:
http://www.davidbarrkirtley.com/skull.html

This story appears in the John Joseph Adams zombie anthology The Living Dead:
"From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, from Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. The ultimate consumers, zombies rise from the dead and feed upon the living, their teeming masses ever hungry, ever seeking to devour or convert, like mindless, faceless eating machines. Zombies have been depicted as mind-controlled minions, the shambling infected, the disintegrating dead, the ultimate lumpenproletariat, but in all cases, they reflect us, mere mortals afraid of death in a society on the verge of collapse.

Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of todays most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison®, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead, covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction, ranging from Romero-style zombies to reanimated corpses to voodoo zombies and beyond."

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• zombies
• horror
• supernatural
• fiction
• literature
• writer
• author
• reading
• book
• short-story
• the-living-dead

[adonnenniel]

This is good, DBK! It was nostalgic, yet quite lovely to hear you read again! You have the best reading voice! ~Arin (Alpha '06 '07!)

[davekirtley]

Hi Arin! Thanks! It's good to hear from you. I hope you're doing well.

[DiceWarwick]

... Mehhh, it lacked any horror, just questionable confusion.

[IamUberStein]

I like how you employ narrative action over boring setting description or narrative exposition. Good job David.

I hope you keep writing

[Creepydorky]

hmmm... cool story,

but the way you read is confusing. Quite a few of your sentences end like questions. It is hard to follow.