For the last hour or so, I have been waiting for my daughter to show.  She’s supposed drop by with my medication and some groceries, and she had better do it quick, because the cupboards and the refrigerator are damn near empty.  I look at the clock and it reads ten A.M.  She always comes by at nine; it even says so on that dumb “Memory Board” my nurse has posted in every room of my house.  “Friday at nine A.M.-Jenny visits.” (more…)

Transcript from Late Night Live with Phillip Ross, Radio National

February 28, 2019

Phillip Ross: Good evening listeners and welcome to Late Night Live, I’m your host Phillip Ross. This evening I’m pleased to introduce a leading academic in the field of Zombie research: Roman Weisz, Associate Professor of Life-Challenged Ethics at Harvard’s school of Sociology

Prof. Weisz: Thank you for having me Phillip.

PR: Latest research indicates that we may be on the verge of developing a vaccine that curbs the aggressive tendencies within zombie mice. There are now calls to begin experiments on human zombies. What are your views on this? (more…)

The heat of the morning sun forces me from my canvas home and out onto the flat gravel world. I drink greedily of my meagre water and wrench the two foam stops from my ears. The low monotone rumbles becoming distinctive moans from my dead neighbours below. My heart sinks.

I crunch across the gun shop roof towards the door, locked and wedged shut with my heavy pack. Sliding it out of the way I listen. Six days of scratching and shuffling becomes seven and I don’t know if I have the will to open the door. Slowly, I turn the key and hear excitement rise from below. Hesitantly, I open the door and the carpet of foetid stinking hands below grasp through the broken stair well to the bottom edge of the door, hunger increasing every day. I close the door quickly, lock it and wedge the pack back against it. One more day trapped in my new home, my new prison. (more…)

Marlena smelled of stale piss and rubbing alcohol. Blotches the color of overripe apples stippled her cheeks, and her eyes were dark troughs in a barn-gray face. Her pale lips had been reduced to thin slashes of peeling flesh and the weak breath passing between them smelled of approaching death.

Richard sat in a chair by Marlena’s bedside, listening to her labored breathing and watching fluids percolate from the tubes snaking from beneath her blankets. (more…)

I stand in the doorway of my white suburban house with a military-issue M-16 assault rifle, eyes to the horde, waiting for the undead to get within range. My pressed white shirt and pale pink tie (a gift from my wife) will soon be a Jackson Pollock with the partially coagulated blood of so many zombies.

My family waits in a safe-room, enough supplies for a few days. If I can’t make this stand, it’ll only delay a far worse fate. I’ve attached a canister of hydrogen sulfide gas to their dedicated oxygen supply, ready to open if things go south. I do this because I love them. (more…)

June 30th

It was the scent that caught me off guard. My eyes took in the faded nightgown, the pink bunny slippers, the frazzled hair in its quaint bonnet. Shades of pastel, like a bag of candy-coated chocolate eggs. Evocative of spring, you’d think, except that her skin was withered, gnarled, perhaps… crumbly to the touch? Eyes staring, lidless. Mouth yawning open, lips peeling and curled back to reveal jutting yellow teeth. And still, still I was determined to love her. (more…)

Marcus awoke at the sound of the alarm. Waking quickly he hit the stop button and removed the batteries. Lying back down he checked his watch.10.40. He looked over at his wind-up alarm clock and saw the time showed 8.24. Damm. How drunk had he been last night? Drunk enough to forgot to wind his alarm clock but not so drunk that he had put batteries in his digital clock. Still, he had twenty minutes to spare. (more…)

He glanced at his four year old daughter and saw that she was looking at the mushrooms growing beside the deer trail.

“Don’t eat those mushrooms, they are poisonous and you will die. Do you understand?”

“Yes Daddy “, she said quickly. (more…)

It’s too damn hot, Mya Velázquez thought. She stood outside the house, wishing for a breeze to cool her down. She looked up at the black sky, searching for a lone star, but all she found was darkness stretched to the furthest limits.

Mya couldn’t stand being on night watch. (more…)

I used to be a metrosexual, one of those men who took too much pride in their appearance. I used moisturiser to prevent wrinkles, aftershave balm; I had back, crack and sacks, and a cupboard full of expensive treatments to stave of my fledgling wrinkles at the grand old age of twenty nine. I used to have a bathroom cabinet filled will colognes and aftershaves from all the top designers, and a regular appointment at the salon. That was before. (more…)