Dead Undead

Today, Honeygloom invites us to reflect on what it truly means to feel alive amidst a world filled with chaos and uncertainty. (Guest Author Series)

Sharon looked up from her Candy Crush game at the TV and nudged her husband Mike as he dozed on the sofa next to her.

“What?”

She turned the TV up and pointed at the news caster with the remote.

“You gotta hear this.”

The polished bobblehead on the screen looked concerned as she faced the camera.

“President Trump said today that over 300 million Americans died in illegal-drug related incidents last year. This is extremely worrying as the population of the United States is about 340 million people.” She turned to her fellow anchorperson, “Experts, as well as the average citizen, are concerned, Tom. Clearly most of us are now dead, but no one is quite sure which of us is deceased or how or when the government will let us know.”

“That is very alarming, Ann. We could both be dead right now and have no idea. And there’s no word at all on how the government plans to handle this situation?”

“None at all Tom. I for one am struggling, what do I tell my kids? Are my kids even alive?”

Tom turned to face the camera, “Stay tuned, we will be updating you on this tough situation as it develops.”

Sharon turned off the TV. “Honey, are we dead?”

“We don’t do drugs?” Mike scratched his beard with both hands.

“Well the president said we did.”

“He said 300,000,000 people did, that doesn’t mean us necessarily.”

“How do we know for sure? Oh, Mike, I don’t want to be dead.”

“Maybe they’ll send us a letter.”

“No one sends mail to dead people, I bet it’s the living who get letters.”

“So, no letter means you’re dead.”

Sharon nodded. “How long do we wait?”

“To be honest, I feel a little dead already.”

Sharon set her knitting aside. “What does it feel like?”

“It doesn’t feel like anything. I can’t feel if I’m dead, right?”

“If you’re dead, I’m dead, too. I can’t live without you.”

Sharon and Mike stood in line at the grocery store, a bag of dog food the sole item in their cart. Mike stood stooped, his greasy beard twisted in knots. Sharon smelled the sour decay coming off of their bodies. Her stomach growled, it was the sound of a body putrefying from the inside out. The bright lights felt like a weight. She sat down on the cold linoleum. Mike glanced down at her, then looked back up.

In front of them a woman in a dirty bathrobe leaned on a cart full of kid food, bananas, yogurt, cereal, white bread. One child sat crying in the cart, two others, filthy and tearstained, held on to her robe.

“Mama!” One of the kids, a little girl in a Mini Mouse t-shirt, screamed. The woman looked down, her shoulders heaving in a sigh. “That lady is on the floor.”

The woman looked at Sharon, her eyes swam in dark, gibbous bags. “Do you know how hard it is to parent live children when you’re dead?”

“We have a dog,” Mike cut in.

“They’re growing up in a dead world with a dead momma,” the woman turned back to her cart and her hollow-eyed children.

The line moved forward. Sharon used the cart to climb her way back to vertical. Ahead of them the dead woman with live children was arguing with the cashier. The conversation faded in and out of focus.

“…dead.”

“…still have to…”

“…dead.”

The woman walked out without paying.

Mike and Sharon moved up to the register. It took both of them to maneuver the heavy bag of dog food onto the counter. The cashier was masked and gloved and kept spraying air freshener all around her.

“You get to be alive?” Sharon asked, quickly snatching one of her fingernails from the conveyor belt. They’d been falling out lately. The cashier rolled her eyes.

“You people are so infuriating. None of you are dead. You’re just idiots who really need a shower.”

Sharon held out the fingernail she’d lost. “See, I’m decaying.”

“You’re starving to death, you fucking moron.” She scanned the dogfood and slammed the barcode scanner down on the counter. “$47. 73, and if you try to skip out without paying I swear to Christ you will remember what the pain of being alive feels like.”

Mike paid. He had a pension, but he was sure he wasn’t supposed to continue receiving it after death. He’d tried calling the fund managers to report the error, but they weren’t answering calls. Probably they had all died.

A screech and the crunch of metal, undercut by the hiss of the air freshener can, interrupted Sharon taking the receipt and she let it flutter to the counter.

Under the bright sun a car had driven onto a parking median and hit a small tree, the horn was blaring and smoke billowed out from under the hood. The driver got out and stumbled away, no one stopped the dead man. On the pavement in front of the store, a crowd stood around a small body. The little girl who had pointed at Sharon inside, she’d been run down by the car. Blood pooled underneath her head. Her mother stood over her, silent, stone faced. Sharon watched as the crowd started to dissipate. She felt, something, a tickle in her chest. A tiny electrical impulse in her brain that sparked, but just as quickly fizzled.

“Do you remember where we parked?” Mike asked.

“That way I think.” Sharon pointed. As they passed, her mother picked the broken child up from the pavement. Blood spattered the grinning Mini Mouse on her t-shirt.

“At least she’s dead like the rest of us now, it’ll be easier for her,” she said as she put the child’s body in the shopping cart on top of the food.

“It’s for the best,” Sharon said.

The woman nodded. “For the best.”

Halloween Guest Author Series

Halloween Candy | Spooky Season | Homecoming | A Dark and Dreary Night | Blood Moon on Halloween | Day Dreaming | Seven Year Itch | Dead Undead

Author’s Note

If you’re in the mood for horror that buzzes with spooky energy and swarms with mysterious plant life, you won’t be able to get enough of

Honeygloom

’s work. Stories, poems, and flash fiction spawn lush nightmare-scapes grounded in research and folklore (The ‘Lab’ series shines where plants are both inspiring and horrific. Take the African Violets, “a plant that can keep nightmares and wandering ghosts at bay if put under your pillow, or as a protection from hexes and witchcraft if carried on your person!”). Honeygloom’s horror doesn’t merely spring from scare-the-kids frights—instead, she carefully constructs a haunted atmosphere in which every vine and leaf looks to be harboring terrible secrets.

She’s also developed a fantastical universe, one involving Deadwater, the surreal California town that is ground zero for an ancient celestial war. This setting provides a balance of eco-horror with supernatural battles and haunted characters that will stick with you after you leave the pages.

For those who want to wander even deeper, her premium content includes the voice of an ancient forest witch whose sharp wit and dark tales will keep you coming back for seconds, along with a gnarly grimoire of plant-based black magic that is simultaneously real and horrific.

Whether you enjoy haunted towns, chilling short stories, or botanical nightmares, the lush, shadowy world of Honeygloom is one that readers will want to return to again and again. Subscribe to Honeygloom by clicking the button near the end of this page.

Upcoming…

• A story by

  Gerard DiLeo
  :

  Spoiler: Mr. D.B. Dies, 29 October 2025

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