In the tasting room, fallen chairs and spilled wine glasses reflected a hasty exit. No guest would dare re-enter the place after witnessing the pouring of the first varietal. Still, the party had not ended for the uninvited, who once laid contorted and buried beneath the hearty vineyard that covered their mass grave.

The uninvited awakened upon the popping of the first cork in a blush red wine. After the bottle was set to breathe, the head of the first corpse, Emil, escaped the mass gravesite and reanimate his breath. The aroma emitted from the bottle called to him, his brother and a hundred other men, as they smelled not a sweet wine, but the fragrance of their own life blood that nurtured the grapes.

As they broke free, they remembered their fate, massacred by evil doers who have kept the secret of their gendercide and entombment. But their loss has not been forgotten. The still tears of their loved ones grants them the strength to claw through dirt and perished limbs to meet the sun for the first time in nearly fifteen years.

Inside the tasting room, the guests gathered around the sommelier, readying their glasses as he prepared to pour the blush red wine. But the guests stepped back when a rancid and thick crimson liquid poured out from the bottle and into the first glass. The wine taster gasped, then screamed and dropped the blood filled stemware she held. Shards of glass and blood united in splatters across the concrete floor.

The crowd turned truculent, guests criticizing what they thought was an evil joke. Then the room fell silent when the doors of the tasting room thrust open, announcing the arrival of the uninvited guests. Emil, with his brother at his side, led the way, half limping toward the tables. An uproar began as the invited guests ran for the emergency exits. The owner of the vineyard picked up a bottle and swung it at an invader, forcing the undead man to the ground. Seconds later, the corpse lifted his rotted flesh and bones, and recommenced toward Emil, where his leader handed bottles and glasses to his mates.

While the room emptied of the living, the undead filled their glasses with the juice of their blood. Emil stood at the front, readied for the toast. He lifted his glass and said, “A toast to you all, who have arisen with me and my brother from our shared grave.” The undead cheered. “And a toast to those who put us there and to those who did nothing to stop them.” A moan replaced the cheer. “Be not weary my friends, for their evil misjudgment will not go forgotten or forgiven. They await their punishment for their atrocities.” Glasses lifted and clanked, and they drank to the toast, sipping the blood that was once theirs. Then Emil lifted his glass once more. “Follow me my friends. To our revenge.”

This story was submitted to a writing contest a couple months ago and made it to the top 100 judging, but didn’t place.

Everyone has something to hide, but they can’t hide it from me. I see their secrets in a cloud, literally hanging over their heads. I suppose that’s why I became a private detective.

I started seeing people’s secrets after serving in the Army during the height of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. My duty as a driver turned to combat soldier–a role in which I hadn’t been trained or expected to fulfill as a woman–when Iraqi insurgents attacked our convoy inside the city limits of Iskandariyah. As soon as bullets hit our truck, I grabbed a weapon and fought with my fellow soldiers to defend the convoy.

After the gunfire ceased, I was shocked and heart broken to find that I had accidentally shot and killed a mother and her daughter around the same age as my niece. We left the scene; never to speak of their deaths again.

Three months later I sustained a head injury and spent a month in a coma. Shortly after I woke up, I remember the nurse helping me to the bathroom. I splashed water on my face, and when I looked up and into the mirror I was taken aback. Besides me, the mirror reflected a blurred vision of the dead mother and her daughter hanging in a cloud over my head. Then I turned toward the nurse. She also had a cloud, revealing she was a kleptomaniac. Five years later I’m still haunted by the mother and daughter, as well as the rest of the world’s secrets.

Today I’m on surveillance at the Sunflower Motel for a client who suspects her husband is having an affair. Cheater cases are quick money, and this one was no different. From the first moment I spotted the husband, I could see infidelity hanging over his head.

The husband entered room 103 around two o’clock. Ten minutes later a woman pulled up and got out of a car she parked beside the husband’s car. She knocked on the door of room 103, and when the husband answered, I snapped a picture of the two greeting with a kiss.

As I lowered the camera, I noticed the cloud above his head turn blurry. That sometimes happens with people who have a lot to hide. I thought nothing of it and started my car.

I took my time going home, stopping for gas and Chinese takeout on the way. At home I downloaded the pictures off my camera and emailed them to my client as she had asked. Then I settled down in front of the television and finished off a carton of chicken fried rice and a bottle of Chardonnay. By five o’clock I fell asleep.

I awoke to a reporter on the evening news saying, “A woman was found strangled at the Sunflower Motel in room 103 a few hours ago. Police are linking this murder to two others committed in the past three weeks.”

So that’s why his cloud blurred. My next thought was to warn my client. I dialed her number, but got an answering machine. I said, “Julia, it’s Penny. Call me. It’s an emergency.”

She picked up. “Penny? I got the pictures. Thanks.”

“I’m calling about something else. Is your husband home?”

“Yes. I mean no.” Her voice sounded shaky and stressed.

“You need to get out of the house Julia.”

“I’m fine.” She hung up. Or, I wondered, was it her husband who hung up?

I redialed Julia’s number but she didn’t answer. So I called the police and told them about what I’d seen during surveillance earlier that day, as well as the call to Julia and her stressed condition over the phone. They said they’d look into it immediately.

I felt antsy and couldn’t just sit at home waiting for an update on television. I got in my car and drove to Julia’s house. There were two police cars parked in front of the house when I arrived.

I got out of my car and nervously approached the front door. When I rang the doorbell, I prayed the door would not open to a murder scene.

Julia answered and I felt relieved until I caught sight of the cloud of secrets above her head. Three strangled women appeared in the background while Julia pulled a wedding band off the finger of a man’s dismembered hand. She put the ring in her pocket and shoved the hand in a black trash bag.