It was Christmas Day, which may have been more obvious if the world hadn’t ended seven years ago.
I missed the holiday season, when people still debated over whether decorations should go up before or after Thanksgiving. Now, people discussed how to avoid the disease slowly consuming all of humanity.
“Rapunzel,” Midas said, shifting
Muzzy from sleep, I worked my way up from under the soil.
The Alarm has sounded! We must rise!
After emerging, I dusted off my tattered clothing, working gently so as not to abrade the grey skin on my palms. My shirt appeared more frayed than last time.
Well, what did I expect?
When people warned us about the apocalypse, they never mentioned injuries. And I’m not talking about a zombie bite or breaking your legs or having a loose street sign fall and impale you while you’re trying to fish a Snickers bar out from the bottom of a drain… rest in peace, Donny.
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The end of the world was an inconvenient time to have eighty-foot-long hair.
Rapunzel bolted through the forest, trying to ignore the echoing moans that chased her. Her head snapped back when an unruly strand of hair tangled around a branch. She yanked it free, then pumped her legs as hard as
Once more, the sun set on Reuben’s farm. Beneath the fuchsia sky, no kittens mewed, no cattle lowed. Eerie quiet filled the chicken coop, the barn, and even the doghouse. Not even birdsong broke the farm’s unnatural silence. To the east, however, the world began to stir as sunlight left its skies. Living creatures
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“We hit this gas station”—I point at a crease in the map spread out over the RV’s dining table—“grab food, toilet paper, gas—”
“And slushies,” Martin chimes in.
“—and slushies. Then we hightail it to the monument, here.”
I survey my crew. Martin, my younger brother, looks like a…
Greg glanced at the clock: a quarter to nine. He could close early. After all, he doubted anyone would saunter in fifteen minutes to closing.
But it’s the principle of the thing. The sign says open ‘til nine. Chin in hand, he flipped a page in his magazine.
The bell above the door jingled
I will eat you.
My meal sits outside of a prison cell’s glass wall. Tempting. So close. Inches away.
Eat you how?
“I-I just wanted to say I’m not afraid of you, Morlock.” The figure holds an object in his hands. “I know that’s not your real name. But that’s what you are. Like
Pam: I saw one
Jimmy: srsly? What do they look like? I hear they’re so orange, they’ll burn your eyes. Like the sun.
Pam: How’d you now what I’m talking about?
*know
Jimmy: Because it’s all anyone is talking about. Cam got sent to the hospital last week for getting too close
Six months into the sleep-zombie catastrophe, the survivors knew one thing: they were grateful for the winged, magic sloths.
One such survivor, Leesia, leaped over a crumbling stone wall marking an old boundary between fields. Gasping for breath, she dropped to her knees. Her brother-in-law Rayth joined her a moment later.
The zombies had the stronghold surrounded. But what else was new?
Kicking my feet up on my desk, I clicked on my handheld recorder. “This is Commander Corinthia II—that’s ‘Cori’ to my friends, ‘Commander’ to the rest of you—with an update on our situation. It’s day…” I glanced at the walls of my concrete room. The hordes of tally marks looked like the desperate clawing of the undead. “…day unknown of The Z Siege. The Oasis is holding up fairly well.” What could zombies do to a concrete fortress in the middle of a desert? Arm themselves with cactus battering rams and charge?
The window was open just enough to let in the cool night air. It swam across her listless body and stirred the stench of rot that hung in the small space. She inhaled deeply and stretched her arms, feeling the weight of the heavy chains that wound around her wrists and attached to the thick metal rings bolted to the floor beneath the bed.
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