Dear Jessie and Bill,

I don’t know where you are or if I’ll ever see you again. The events of today have shocked and confused the world, but they’ve shocked and confused me even more. I’m still not sure if any of this is real, but you two are gone, so it must be. If I can never find you again, then I made a terrible, selfish mistake letting—no, forcing—our family to be separated. If you are safe, I hope you won’t read this until you’re eighteen or older. What happened today was terrible. That much is obvious even to young kids like you. For our family, though, it was doubly terrible, which you probably don’t know about. I don’t know how to explain it to you, or even if I should explain it. I hope to see you both someday soon, but I won’t tell you about it then. I’ll let you read this when the time is right . . . if the time is ever right again. (more…)

I’m not yet ready to express my own experiences during the Plague Years on paper, so I will do what I feel is the next best thing, and relate the experiences of others. What follows is my first real interview.Dave Henshaw looks tired. His appearance is that of someone overworked, a look that appears less and less in postwar Canada, as people rebuild their lives. His is a look that will stay with him until his death; it is a look of one who has seen or done things that cannot be forgotten. It is therefore a surprise that he is so forthcoming, with no coaxing from the author. I met him at his home in Cornwall, Ontario. He is in charge of repairing Cornwall’s roads. The havoc years of complete neglect wrought on the roads is surprising. The repair job is expected to take most of another decade. Here is his story, unedited. (more…)

Broadcast Tape Archive/January, 2011/RZFD 322/Full Transcript:

Hey there, living listeners.  It’s Big Dave here, broadcasting live from the fortress of ass-kickery at Radio Zombie Free Denver.  Yeah, I know I’ve been off the air for a while, and I bet some of you faithless heathens probably thought the zombies lunched up on me, but I’m back, kicking out the tunes, anti-zombie rhetoric, and inane observations at a newly-beefy one hundred thousand watts of AM fury.  I’m on AM bands 800 and 1320, FM 99.5, and Short Wave One where the BBC used to live. (more…)

Since working out exactly how to close the metal security gates at the entrance of the Triggs hypermarket, our group of seven had been huddled in the men’s clothing section, toward the back of the store. We each stared off in our own thoughts for a time. The only sounds came from the mall area. Out there, the children shimmied up and down the front gates, hacking and whooping with those croup-like coughs. (more…)

Daylight was the first to flicker.
The air was subsequently thinned;
we gasped–each breath more
labored than the one before it. (more…)

I knew right away I wasn’t human.
But it took me nearly a quarter-million years to discover what manner of creature I truly am. I am a virus.

A virus is a genetic code without a body. Not even one cell. A single-celled organism has more of a body than a virus. A paramecium has more of a form than a virus. A virus is a parasite. A virus requires a host. A victim, if you please. (more…)

Zombies
He paints them with his gun
colors of red and bone
like bursting balloons
the “Bang” is the same (more…)

The Early Sun Cemetery was created sometime during World War I, and according to records no one has been buried there since 1945. It is about the size of a basketball court and adjacent to a small library which is located across the street from an abandoned Naval Ship yard. There are several old oaks in the middle of the yard and they provide a porous canopy across the hundred or so headstones. The stones are cracked and chipped and many are illegible because years of moss and fungus have faded the original engravings. However, the grass, what little there is, is always neatly trimmed and dead limbs and trash are always picked up by the library’s janitor. In the sunlight the graveyard appears well kept and pleasant, but moonlight shadows cast by a neighboring church’s bell tower and oak trees create a different appearance when the sun falls. The yard appears to illuminate in night with the touch of the moon’s rays. (more…)

Come forth
thundered heaven
the summons heard
they did

what better way
to plague man
than with man
neither locust nor flies
nor darkness would
suffice this go round (more…)

No bites in the morningsave for bugs

drowning in ocular fluid

rubbing and rubbing

out plopped his eye (more…)

6:43 A.M. Cobb County, Maine

The camera comes to life, the attached lights staring brightly ahead. It’s November 2008 and we’re in a school gymnasium that’s been set up as a voting station. There are tables and an American flag and there are ten elderly citizens sitting behind the tables, and stacks of ballots ready to be distributed… what seems a bit unusual are the big pistols and shotguns sitting on the tables and being carried about. The man in the room with the least firepower available, is the uniformed police officer sitting in the corner on a folding chair. (more…)