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G. O. Clark's writing has been published in Asimov's, Analog, Space & Time, A Sea Of Alone: Poems For Alfred Hitchcock, Daily SF, Jupiter (GB) and many other publications. He's the author of thirteen poetry collections, the most recent, The Comfort Of Screams, 2018. His second fiction collection, Twist & Turns, came out in 2016. He won the Asimov's Readers Award for poetry in 2001, and was Stoker Award finalist in 2011. He's retired, and lives in Davis, CA.
Each night, at 12:05 sharp, the train whistle repeatedly blows a kind of Morse code warning to anything on the tracks up ahead in the darkness.
It's a well-known fact that evil things are attracted to the sound, and wander down the tracks towards it, the engine's light pinning them like stage actors in the spotlight just before the final curtain.
At daybreak, under the cloudless sky, the town folk start their day safe in the knowledge that the mess from the night before will have been cleared away, the zombie hoards shy a few more members, the morning train right on schedule.
The End
This story was first published on Thursday, April 11th, 2019
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