Showing results for "the mother’s promise" in Science Fiction & Fantasy

Army veteran Lee Riker is staying in an Atlanta shelter and supporting himself with the odd carpentry job when his sister, Tara, summons him home to Indiana for the reading of their mother’s will. Riker boards a Greyhound bus in Atlanta with his duffel bag, less than $200 to his name, and a secret he must protect at all costs. Riker makes it to Middletown only to learn his sister has recently witnessed a gruesome death. Insisting she saw the victim rise from a pool of his own blood to attack the Samaritan rendering aid, Tara floats the idea that the man may have been a zombie.

Dylan Sanchez used to love Christmas. But for the last three years, the holidays have been anything but festive. Like clockwork, Greg – his mother’s partner – gets intoxicated and spirals from awkward jokes to tense, needling arguments that drain the joy from the season. Every year, his mother says it’ll be different. Every year it isn’t. When Greg slips back into old habits just days before yet another Christmas, Dylan can’t take it anymore. He grabs his coat and walks out, leaving behind the wreckage of promises too thin to stand on.