Today is the last day of FandomFest 2011, and Stephen Zimmer has granted me permission to reveal The Story Behind the Story. I wish I could have let you know these things sooner, but it was just too dangerous.

FandomFest 2011 – The Untold Story
by Marian Allen

It was hot as hell in the FandomFest Literary Dealers’ Room. This was no accident, nor was it an inadequacy of the hotel.

Agents Alicia Clarke and Meagan Ryana, spectacularly undercover in bikinis and high heels, patrolled the perimeter.

Convention attendees shuffled through the room, filtered into single file by the narrow aisles. Most of them had already been to the horror side of the Festival and proudly sported “bloodied” clothing and “mutilated” or “decomposing” faces and arms.

The authors and publishers eyed them and smiled, having been warned, having taken their tables in that room voluntarily and knowing what to expect.

A man with a bullhorn appeared on the entrance ramp.

“Attention, people!” After those two clear words, the announcement descended into gibberish.

That was the signal. Sara Spradlin stepped into the aisle, Smokey, her cat with attitude, by her side.

A man with an impressively fleshless nose turned to his friend, a woman with a savaged neck and bosom.

“Let’s go,” he said in a thick gurgle.

Smokey shook his head. “I don’t think so, sucker.”

Sara fixed the couple with a hypnotic glare.

The two backed up, only to be trapped by Sheri Wright and her killer nuns.

Fiona Young-Brown, Amy McCorkle, Pamela Turner and Bertena Varney converged on the couple, brandishing wooden stakes and dark chocolate.

The man reached up, pulled off his own ear and threw it at Sheri Wright, who only laughed and said, “I bet you only half listen to anybody else, anyway.”

Robert and Karen Walker flanked the cornered duo, Robert’s silver mane billowing in the wind from the industrial fans blowing super-heated air through the room. Karen raised her hands, her fingers and wrists bedecked with the Jewels of Power.

Above, on the balcony, General Stephen Zimmer and his right-hand man, Lieutenant Nathan Day, gripped the railing until their knuckles turned white, watching the drama on the floor below.

“Hold ’em,” the General whispered. “Hold ’em!”

The couple joined hands and leaped upward with preternatural strength.

“Ahar!!!” Captain Cervantes Conradi jumped on a nearby table, Tankard of Death aloft, swashing and buckling until the airborn creatures shrieked and fell to the carpet.

“Hold ’em!” murmured Stephen.

The sun reached its optimum position. It streamed through the clerestory windows, bathing the area with its rays, increasing the room’s temperature another ten degrees.

The undead — for they were undead, not just awesome fans in phenomenal makeup — screamed, writhed, and melted in the heat.

The vendors cheered and applauded. Attendees, believing it was part of the Festival, joined in.

On the balcony, Stephen and Nathan bumped fists.

“And that, Ladies and Gentlemen,” said the General, “is how you defeat a zombie infestation.”

“FandomFest,” said Nathan. “When we say we’ll take care of you–We will take care of you.“

And that’s what MomGoth did this weekend.

If you were in the literary dealers’ room at FandomFest 2011, whether I mentioned you in the story or not, please leave your name, a link to your website, a little about your most recent release or product and, if you want to take a chance on hearing from me sometime, your email address.

If you come to the Festival today, stop by the Hydra Press table just inside the entrance to the literary dealers’ room and say hello to the fine folks from Hydra/The Book Place and T. Lee Harris and me (yes, that is grammatically correct) from The Southern Indiana Writers Group.

WRITING PROMPT: The Undead: write a paragraph in favor of them and one in dispraise of them.

MA