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…)

Three riders cross an empty field, staying in the open, far from any possible Stemmers lurking in the shadows under trees. They stop near a cell tower at the top of a hill. Kate produces a sawed-off shotgun from her saddlebag; something has gone horribly wrong. (more…)

This is my 3rd day in the bathroom. It is also my last. I hold no delusions that anyone will ever read this, or that it has some vital scientific knowledge that must be preserved, I mostly just want to make myself believe that I might have left something to the world. If you are reading these hand towels you took from a chubby, balding zombie then just please remember the name Matthew Nicolas Edgewood, and if you ever see a Bailey Lynn McDonald tell her that I loved her more than anything. This is a brief rundown of my current situation and the last three days. Please forgive the grammar, spelling, and horribly dark sense of humor. I wish I had something really important sounding to say, but I keep coming back to “If I had known hell was a bathroom, I would have brought more reading material.” (more…)

She didn’t know how long she had been there in the dark, but she knew it was long enough that her full bladder would no longer hold again. Whimpering, she crawled on her hands and knees, feeling out in front of her, until she found another corner of the basement to pee, and then pulled her panties back up and found her way back to her own little corner the same way..crouching and feeling her way. She could hear the other girl whimpering in yet another corner, and remembered how wild her eyes had looked when she was thrown, tumbling, down the stairs. (more…)

Tanner awoke with a start. Light was streaming through his open window and he thought the neighbor’s garbage can was rolling down the driveway and into the street.

“No, God please no,” a man’s voice screamed. “Please somebody help me!” (more…)