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…)

Darin leaned back and his chair creaked as he looked out from behind the wall of his cubicle.  He felt like the last person at the lab on campus, but he knew that wasn’t possible.  Hell, it was only ten o’clock.  Felt like midnight.

Sidewalks were empty, fluorescent lights hummed in the hallway, but they were too dim to see very far.  He’d been pulling late nights running some biochemistry tests on a sample the biology students picked up at the lake.  Some kind of organism that was unlike the other forms of algae they’d found.  It was resistant to most of the standard analysis at the lab, too.  It behaved like a parasite, in a way, consuming the algae and changing its form.  It multiplied by an insane rate once it achieved a foothold. At least that’s what the centrifugation process suggested. (more…)

They don’t tell you about the hunger.

It’s all about numbers for them, sales and commissions and profits and retirement funds. After the bottom fell out of the stock market, those who didn’t kill themselves found salvation in the latest phase hitting the country: zombies. (more…)

Roxanne felt a sharp cramp in the side of her abdomen as she sprinted towards the denser forest area.  Quickly glancing over her shoulder, the man who had attacked and brutally murdered her fiancé was still in hot pursuit.  On the verge of exhaustion and her stalker gaining more and more ground on her, Roxanne knew that she was running out of time.

(more…)

SEQUEL TO IRONY

Brian Gren was a simple man with simple tastes. He liked his coffee in the morning, scotch at night and a full rest in between. He always had it too. Running the hardware store in town kept his needs meant and living above it made his life almost too easy. Well, that life was soon tested when the Darkness came around. Just waking up from a long night with his loveliest bottle of cheap scotch, Brian found that he may not have another night like that in quite awhile. The Darkness he heard people call it, assumingly because it had come on at night, Brian wasn’t too sure. Not many living people roam around outside anymore to talk to.

(more…)

When they predicted the apocalypse on December 21, 2012, nobody expected it would come in the form of the walking dead.  Being in New Orleans where the dead were buried above ground meant that they showed up sooner than in most other places.  The people of the Big Easy woke up on December 22^nd, thinking the worse thing they had to deal with was finishing their Christmas shopping.  Instead as they left their homes to get into their cars many of them found themselves short a few brains.

(more…)

The sky was bruised, wounded and heavy. Gravid clouds wallowed menacingly above the unsightly concrete stain of a retail park. Thunder growled and lightning split the horizon as indistinct figures moved despondently through the deepening gloom, shambling to and from the various shops and fast food outlets. Unintelligible murmurings caught the wind, orphaned and wretched.  Assorted vehicles, seemingly discarded by lackadaisical owners who no longer had need of them, lay dotted over the vast parking area, lending the scene an irrefutable air of neglect and decay. (more…)

“Down on your knees,” the nameless Minister commanded over the shortwave. “Beg the almighty for your forgiveness. God’s army has come. Glory. Oh brilliant fucking glory. God’s army has come. His angels wear the dead. This is God’s war now.”

Sergeant Leon Crane lowered the volume on the short wave in case the bodies could hear the Minister shouting. For three straight days this revelator had preached over the air, not pausing for sleep or food, just moments of silence while he sipped his coffee. The old preacher must have stockpiled a case of Maxwell House in preparation for the apocalypse. (more…)

He’d promised her to take care of her forever and she damned well intended to hold him to that promise.

Beulah placed the old Glock on the pitted surface of the table and took a seat. A bulb hung from the low ceiling by two thin wires, casting sporadic light almost as far as the cinder block walls that framed the room around her. The growl of the generator in the distance sputtered and she had just enough time to pick out the incessant drone from the dead outside the fence before the machine’s engine caught and drowned them out once more.

Tough times just get tougher, she thought. Just the way the world works now. (more…)

Tap, tap, tap.

Once again I find myself stood at the bottom of the stairs that lead to the only way out of my prison. Like a salmon returning to the spawning grounds I seem to find myself drawn there by instinct. I don’t even remember getting out of the chair and walking this far.

The tapping happens every day, never at the same time, but always on a daily basis, tapping at the only way in or out of my bunker. (more…)