“Viruses mutate. They branch off through natural selection and evolve continuously. Microscopically, each new strand might look almost identical to the original, but the effects on the host can be radically different. Look at the Human Herpes Virus: HH1 is genital herpes, HH3 is chickenpox.”

I remember the lessons of my senior year biology seminar often nowadays. I wonder where Professor Schneiderman is now, if he’s still alive, still explaining virus behavior to a bunch of starving survivors. Probably not; most likely he’s dead and feeding on those starving survivors. I load my make-shift crossbow, take aim, and shoot–another undead falls and three push to take its place. (more…)

The two thoughts that usually come to mind: I need to remember to be truly grateful that I’m still here. And I really miss coffee. That’s not entirely fair; I do get coffee occasionally, but the luxury of a hot pot of the black nectar every morning was something I took for granted. That’s a mistake I won’t repeat. (more…)

“We’ve never seen a case of transmissible autism,” the nurse whispered, as she escorted me to the “containment area”.

State Schools for the Disabled had long been abolished. Yet there were still children born slow, or with odd twitches, or personalities that didn’t fit the norm. And as medical science came closer to making us all perfect, society’s definition of perfection grew ever higher. And those who couldn’t be clipped or trimmed or smashed into the mold, fell to the wayside. And fell through the cracks to this place. (more…)

/tape starts

MB: “I’m in conversation with Joseph Wyndham, leader of the Eastnor tribe and one of the longest running siege survivors in the UK, I’m also here with his daughter, Isla,..”

Isla Wyndham: “hi”

MB:”We are in his farmhouse on the Isle of Mull off the West coast of Scotland. Joe holed up in a little known stately home..”

Joseph Wyndham: “It was a castle” (more…)

The scene couldn’t be purchased for hard currency in any amount. The last three werewolves on earth, defending the Acropolis against a legion of zombies too numerous to count. The evening sky boils with blood, the still air electric, the fallible gods of old looking down on us. (more…)

When it all started Vincent was hunched over a keyboard writing a report on his first true clinical psychopath. There seemed to be double the clamour one could expect during an early afternoon in the psychiatric wing of the Ted Fisher Correctional Facility. His mind screened out this background noise–although at one point he glanced out the window and saw a woman in a tight skirt and high heels running across the hospital wing’s manicured lawn. His subconscious mind noted the oddity, but up top he was still evaluating when, if ever, his ‘client’ ought to be released back into the regular prison system. When the woman disappeared behind a hedge, he turned back to his computer screen and resumed typing. (more…)

1

As the bus squealed to a halt at the mouth of his driveway, Brian Keating slung his backpack over his shoulder, and made his way past the empty seats toward the driver.

“Have a good night, Mr. Sayers,” Brian said.

The late afternoon sun spilled through the windshield, and the driver shielded his eyes with one hand as he fumbled with the dial on his radio with the other. He cocked his head toward the loud hiss that emanated from the exposed speaker duct-taped to the dashboard. (more…)

The eyes open. It is… blue. It is blue but there is white and green… what happened? The eyes aren’t helping.

The body. There is something hard on the back. Nowhere else. Something is in the hand. Moving is… hard. Is moving supposed to be hard? The neck hurts but the eyes can’t reach the pain. There is no memory of injury. There… there is no memory at all. Something is wrong. There is pain, there is fear, there is… hunger! (more…)

Somewhere in the Middle of Kansas

[Before the Zombie War, mediums were considered con artists by the majority of society. Men and women who were the hosts of flashy Reality T.V. shows, playing up to an audience who tuned in for a quick thrill; sometimes the subject of television or film dramas, mediums have not earned much more than open skepticism and derision. I am speaking with a medium on a dirt patch somewhere in the heart of what used to be America’s bread basket in the state known as Kansas. In the days before the Panic, she was known as Tshilaba, a Romani name meaning “seeker of knowledge.” These days, she is known by something simpler: Mercy.] (more…)

“Hail Mary, full of grace, thy followers are with thee–”

“Shut up.”

To spite Cort, Sandra rubbed a rosary bead between her fingers.  “Thou art first among women–”

Cort slammed a rusty lug wrench against a pipe in the body shop’s wall.  “I said, shut up!” (more…)

Spring came in with a vengeance this year. The rain hasn’t let up for almost two weeks. The wind sheared two thick boughs from my Golden Delicious apple tree, rain washed out the timbers for the raised vegetable beds, mud swamped my outdoor cistern.

The all-night roar of the thaw-swollen Pemegewesset River slapping against the underside of the cast iron bridge gnaws like the persistent scrape of fingernails on a chalkboard. (more…)