‘That Risen Snow’ Blog Tour – On Killing Zombies: Character Interview with Grouchy the Dwarf from The Scary Tales

Guest Post by Rob E. Boley

 

The entrance to Lookout Tower at Kettering, Ohio’s Hills & Dales Metropark was sealed long ago and yet it is from this stony barrier that Grouchy the dwarf emerges. A pale light from within the tower silhouettes his bulky body.

 

“Hello.” I wave to my protagonist.

 

We stand beside the tower perched atop a wooded hill overlooking a thin slice of forest that’s crammed between a golf course and some suburbs. The dwarf stinks of foreign spices, body odor, gore, and rotten apples—just as I’d written him. He favors one leg, the result of a fall down a staircase, a dog bite, a bear attack, and a mine collapse—among other injuries.

 

He squints at me. “So. You’re here to interview me.” He says interview as if it’s a word made up by children.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Bring any food? I’m fumping starving.”

 

“Sorry.” I shake my head. “I brought this.”

 

I produce a thick glass growler of Mother Fuggle Brown Ale, brewed locally at Eudora Brewing Company here in Dayton. It’s dark but not too heavy, with some nutty and chocolate flavors. He takes the growler, unscrews the lid, and takes a deep pull. When he lowers the bottle, his head remains tilted back, assessing the 56-foot height of the tower. “What the hells is this?”

 

“It’s known as the Witch’s Tower, Frankenstein’s Tower, or Haunted Tower, depending who you ask.”

 

“I’m asking you, swob.”

 

Swob is what the dwarfs call humans. I choose not to address Grouchy with the human term for dwarfs—stump. Likewise, I don’t tell him that the tower can be seen at the beginning of my book trailer for That Risen Snow. Or that my daughter played him in the trailer or that I played the Prince who woke his beloved Snow with a kiss. Something tells me he wouldn’t be amused.

 

“It’s called Lookout Tower.”

 

He takes another drink. “Let’s get this over with. I gotta get back. What do you want to know?”

 

“What’s the best way to kill a zombie?”

 

He frowns. “What the hells is a zombie?”

 

“You know, a Horror.” That’s what they’re called in my Scary Tales books. “What’s your best advice on how to kill them?”

 

“Why?” His hand goes to the hilt of his sword. His eyes probe the trees. “You have them here, too?”

 

“No.”

 

“When why do you care?”

 

“I’m writing a guest blog for a zombie website. Seemed like it’d make a fun article.”

 

“Fun? You’re some kind of special ass-pit.”

 

He lets the insult hang in the air while he takes another drink.

 

“There ain’t nothing fun about Horrors, or zombies, or whatever you want to call them. They look like folks you used to know—used to care about—but now there’s no reason left in them. They’re mad—all red eyes and gnashing teeth and hissing. All they want to do is bite you. It only takes one bite to spread the curse.”

 

“Snow’s curse. It started with her, right? She rose as a Horror after the Prince woke her with a kiss.”

 

He flinches at the word kiss and takes a deep chug from the growler, throat contracting several times. “Yeah. She did.”

 

“Okay. Moving on. What weapon would you recommend people use to kill zombies, er, Horrors?”

 

“Anything sharp or heavy. Be creative. In the right hands, anything is a weapon. But be careful. Blades are tricky. Sometimes they can get wedged in a bone or joint, then you’re fumped.”

 

“But you use a sword, right?”

 

“Yeah, it’s called Honey-Stick. But I’d reckon most folks are better off with a big damn club. That’s the best way to crack the brain. Otherwise, the dead Horror comes back as a Drudge.”

 

“Drudge?”

 

He sighs. “It’s when a Horror dies but doesn’t stay dead, not like they should.”

 

“Undead?” I offer.

 

“Whatever.” Another chug. “We used to call them Horrors, too, but it got too confusing. So, Drudges. Same as Horrors, they like to bite. They’re slower and dumber, but quiet as shadows.”  He shakes his head. “Then there’s the Creepers, they’re nasty shits.”

 

“Could you—”

 

He cuts me off. “They came later, a couple days after Snow woke up. Skeletons rose out of their graves. And later, out of fresh corpses. Used to be, you had to get bit to get infected by the curse. Now, we’ve all got the curse waiting inside us. When I die, I’ll come back as a Drudge. When my friends strike me down, my skeleton will tear it’s way out of my body as a Creeper. It might keep its current shape, or it might twist its slimy black bones into something worse.”

 

“So how do you kill a Creeper?”

 

“You just keep hitting until it’s in pieces. Until it stops attacking you.” He stares down into the empty growler and burps. “So that’s how you kill zombies. You just keep swinging. You never stop fighting. You don’t wait for anything to get better, because you have to accept that it’s only going to get worse.”

 

He tosses the bottle and rises. “When you stop fighting—when you rest, when you hesitate, when you let your guard down, that’s when they get you.”

 

“Hey,” I say. “What’s your hurry? Your world’s full of monsters and pain and danger. Why don’t you stay here where it’s safe?”

 

He limps back inside the tower. “I’m sure it’s nice here, but it’s just a fairy tale to me. Besides, my Snowflake needs me.”

 

“Good luck, Grouchy. May you live happily ever after.”

 

He chuckles. “I’d be happy just to die in peace.”

 

The stone entrance grinds back into place, same as it was before. Only a hint of rotten apples lingers in the air.

 

 

 

About the Author:

Rob E. Boley is the author of The Scary Tales series of novels, featuring mash-ups of your favorite fairy tale characters and classic horror monsters. He grew up in Enon, Ohio, a little town with a big Indian mound. He later earned a B.A. and M.A. in English from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Aside from The Scary Tales series, his fiction has appeared in several markets, including A cappella Zoo, Pseudopod, Clackamas Literary Review, and Best New Werewolf Tales. His stories have won Best in Show in the Sinclair Community College Creative Writing Contest and the Dayton Daily News/Antioch Writers’ Workshop Short Story Contest. He lives with his daughter in Dayton, where he works for his alma mater. Each morning and most nights, he enjoys making blank pages darker.

 

Author Website:

http://www.robboley.com.

 

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