The research is still going on in earnest at Easter Island. I didn’t know this before she told me, and with few exceptions no one that I’ve related the information to has had prior knowledge of it either.

In fact, I’ve discovered that the most predictable response to news that the international scientific community still, after all this time, is in search of a Cure has nothing to do with the Infection at all. Instead, most people look at me in shock and say, “Easter Island? That place is real?? And they do science there??” (more…)

SEQUEL TO PART 2

“Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.”

For a moment, when Martin woke up, he was back in the Penthouse, nestling between the Egyptian cotton sheets; listening to the gentle hum of the air conditioning. Then he smelt the damp and realised he was sleeping in his clothes. The stark reality rushed at him like a fresh Zombie.

His dreams last night had been dominated by disembodied faces from the crowd, or that of the mechanic, as he was encased in the dead. He dreamt of being trapped in a phone box unable to get out as he screamed at passers by who ignored him, and carried on their way. His dreams had been a frenzied mash of screams accompanied by the sensation of falling. He had not had a good nights rest. (more…)

“Some things are best forgotten.”

May 17, 1967

No one remembered the original name of the old mining town. A sign long ago placed by an enterprising entrepreneur that proudly proclaimed Hot Coffee in bold letters had won out by default. How Myers wound up in Hot Coffee, Colorado was a long story. However, if he found the final survivor of Custer’s Last Stand, it would make his book like money in the bank. (more…)

Jenny stumbled blindly in the dark forest. Impenetrable blackness surrounded her, engulfing her in a sightless abyss. Not even the scant glow of her tiny campfire was visible anymore. The faintest of shapes eluded her direct vision, dancing instead as obscure forms at the periphery. She stared blankly into the night, trying to hold her eyes still and discern the objects that moved within it.

Her muscles screamed for her to run, but she didn’t know where. (more…)

The tiny gas station’s old wooden door suddenly burst open, spilling sunlight and a man onto the dingy floor within. The door swung on its aged copper hinges and crashed into a pegboard stand of fishing lures to the left of it. Shimmering artificial bait with names like Red Claw and Sexy Swimmer rattled in their plastic packages, pendulating back and forth on dull-grey metal pegs. (more…)

I was riding along, my zombies in front of me and my packhorse trailing behind, when I came to a cut in the narrow road.  High banks covered with grass rose up on both sides.  The zombies started between the banks, then suddenly I heard gunfire.  Someone on top of one of the banks was firing short bursts.

Two zombies fell with headshots but the herd kept going without slowing down, and then the gunfire paused.  I released the packhorse, drew my shotgun and spurred my way up the bank.  I figured the shooter was reloading, and I wanted to flush him out before he opened up again.

I knew more or less where he would be, based on sound and the angle of fire down to the fallen zombies, but I couldn’t find him.  I rode around for a while with no luck, and then I heard a yelp and reined to a stop.  My horse was standing on a mound of grass.  I thought it must be some kind of animal’s nest, until the mound moved and a voice yelled, “Get off me, ya freakin’ dead-head!” (more…)

[Wellington is one of the Southern Hemisphere’s success stories. I traipse up the stairwell, showing my smartcard to the guards. Across the hall, Colonel Robert Maguire sits up in bed, ravaged by the rad dose that he received during enforcement of New Zealand’s controversial ‘triage’ policy]

I know that there are some people out there who hate me, mostly those who lost family within the Australian theatre of World War Z. Unlike other states that enforced a cordon sanitaire, such as South Africa and Israel/Palestine, we had a sea border to control and protect and a long coastline. (more…)

Four of my zombies shook off their hobbles during the night, so after I finished eating and shaving I set out to round them up. I went on foot, because the herd was in a small field and I knew the strays couldn’t have gone far in the surrounding trees.

I found three of the zombies a few yards into the trees and led them back to join the rest, then I went looking for the fourth. It took awhile but I finally found him deeper into the woods, and when I saw him I got a hell of a shock–a bear was standing in front of him and eating his guts. (more…)

The radio in the small bunker crackled to life with the sound of soldiers under fire. Down in the valley an American combat patrol had been ambushed by a machinegun and was pinned down, unable to move. The tension quickly mounted in the bunker as five field artillery soldiers stood waiting to take an enemy location sent by the soldiers in contact and turn it into firing data for the howitzers to hammer the enemy with 105mm high explosive artillery shells. The artillerymen did not have to wait very long.

“FIRE MISSION!” shouted the sergeant in response to the buzzing alarm of the battlefield computer in front of him.

“FIRE MISSION!” parroted back four soldiers, their voices loud in the cramped confines of the sandbag and plywood bunker they used as the fire direction center. (more…)

Sam Minitz opened his eyes in that spasm of mobilized desperation which sometimes helps claw back to wakefulness from a nightmare too awful to be borne.

But the tension was still pressing down on his body like an armor of leaden plates; he could hardly move as yet, only groan desperately at the menacing figures all around.

It took endless seconds for his brain to catch up with his waking. When it did, the looming monsters and intruders resolved into mere dark folds in the drapes. He was alone in his room, alone in his apartment.

Just him, tightened like a coil ready to snap. (more…)

I entered the studio apartment, flicked on the lights, and turned on her oven. I was still drunk, but needed to maintain, so I opened the bottle of wine and set it on the coffee table in front of the black velvet couch that sat beneath heavy draped windows letting in little of the overcast day. The microwave dinged and she stepped out, steam coming off her body as she stood in the center of the room, a dead look on the face of my zombie whore. It took a minute for her to cool down from the microwave, so I grabbed two glasses from atop the dresser next to the bed and poured them half full. I sat on the bed, balancing her glass on top of the thick umber comforter that contrasted with the gray walls, and I unbuttoned my uniform jacket, letting out a deflating breath, wincing a bit. I took the pillbox from my pocket and washed two capsules down with the wine. (more…)