Zombie Drabble #279 “Farming for Dummies”

“The library’s on fire.”

“What?”

“The library. Look.” She pointed into the darkness, at details barely visible. A fire at night is a pillar of smoke lit from beneath by a writhing orange glow.

“How do you know it’s the library?”

“Well, see the black flat roof there? That’s the strip mall where Subway is. Then across the street is the park with all the trees. Next to it is the library.”

“Isn’t that where Cooper and the others were holed up?”

“Like I give a shit about Arleigh Cooper, Bobby. The books, Bobby. We’re gonna need books to rebuild.”

Zombie Drabble #278 “Memory Foam”

His arms felt like he’d been lifting weights all day. The zombie skulls he had pounded to get here from across town were beyond number. Still he was no safer than before.

The hardware store roof wasn’t a particularly comfortable place to lie down for the night, but he needed the rest. Just across the street was a Redman’s with its selection of dozens of beds lined up waiting for customers who would never come; briefly he wondered if there was a way to get at least a mattress up here. In the end, he just hoped it wouldn’t rain.

Fantasy Drabble #174 “Mutual Assured Destruction”

She’s standing in the doorway, that look on her face: she wants to devour me. For reasons I don’t care to explain — because you’d never understand — I’m happy about this.

I’m perfectly safe. She’ll control herself, she always does; I’ll be left weak and gasping, but alive. After two hundred years of practice, she knows what she’s doing. I’m fairly sure I trust her.

But there’s still a wooden stake hidden under the pillows, where I can reach it just in case. If she knows it’s there, she’s never said anything. I guess she’s fairly sure she trusts me, too.

SF Drabble #246 “Resistance”

“I don’t see them.” Weeze ducked back under cover behind the ruined McDonalds.

Rocker peeked his head around the corner to stare up the road. There were burnt-out cars, some chunks of asphalt kicked up by previous fights, but no Pinkos. He said, “We wait.”

“Hopper said they were almost here, moving fast. Where are they? Maybe they saw him.”

“We’d be hearing weapons fire,” Rocker observed. “Anyway, he’s well-insulated, they won’t see him.” He leaned back out to look again, and then his body fell over, head missing. Only then did Weeze hear the crack of Pinko blaster fire.

Zombie Drabble #277 “Stalingrad”

The children were asleep, all three jammed onto one dingy mattress on the floor. There had been a time when they wouldn’t have fit, but they had lost all their baby fat over the past few months.

“They’re asleep finally.”

“Yeah.”

“We have to talk about the food situation.”

He shook his head. “Nothing to talk about.”

“We’re almost out.”

“I know that. So why talk about it?”

“What are we going to do?”

“Nothing. Nothing to do.”

“We have to try… maybe we can fight our way through them, get away from here—”

“And go where, exactly, Judy? Where?”