A Round Robin Story Written and Told by the Authors of the 2016 Winter of Zombie Blog Tour

1

My name is Edna Grace Childers. My mother called me Grace Child. The kids at church back when I still taught Vacation Bible School back in the 50s and 60s before schools were integrated called me Ms. Edna. The mailman called me Mrs. Childers back before that zombie tore out his throat the day the world ended. Most of the other neighbors called me Edna Grace or nothing at all.

We lived in one of those neighborhoods near a golf course. Everyone rode those electric carts around even when they weren’t golfing. They would ride them out to the community mailbox under the rain cover below the big elm to pick up their letters before our mailman got eaten.

There was a clubhouse I could see out my guest room window with the binoculars. Out my back windows, I saw the woods, the creek, part of the highway, and the overpass for exit 17 where the police car got flipped over and caught on fire when he tried to run over those zombies eating that girl in the short dress. She wasn’t from our side of the highway that I could tell. I’m just saying.

Out my front window, I could see the eighteenth and sixteenth greens. I could see the seventeenth tee and the pond. On the other side of there was the cul-de-sac for Florence Street. Burke Avenue angled away from me in the other direction so that I could see each of the houses clearly. I had to go in my sewing room and use the binoculars to see along the curve of Holsten Bend. I could see the backyards there, so I was able to report if someone’s fence was too high or if they stored a boat against the association rules. The board thanked me every time I called, but I could tell they got short with me. You know me, I don’t want to tell no stories, but rules are rules.

The grass hadn’t been cut since the zombies came about a week ago Thursday. One of the houses on the Bend caught fire and it looked like it might catch the other houses. The fire department did not come. Mr. Palmer next door tried to do something with his garden hose. He was wearing black socks with his sandals and a floppy fishing hat. Now he hated that neighbor. They were snow birds from Canada and had parties most weekends when they were down for the summer. Palmer wouldn’t pee on them, if they were on fire most days. Excuse my French. It’s hot without air conditioning and the neighborhood stunk with all the damn zombies and trash pick-up being two weeks overdue.

Well, Mr. Palmer barely got two squirts on the fire before the bloody, rotten mailman snuck up on him around the corner and bit his ear off. Palmer went screaming, holding the side of his head under that hat. He locked himself inside his Cadillac in the driveway. I couldn’t see real well, but he had to be cooking in there in the sun. Eventually, the zombie mailman wandered away. Palmer crawled out of the car with a bloody mess on the side of his head. His skin was blue and he wandered down the street.

He’s married to a mail-order bride from Thailand that he put up in that house of his. I hadn’t seen her come out once even when he was cooking inside his caddy, but that’s none of my business.

The house burned itself out and the Canadian zombies wandered out all crispy and black as midnight a couple days later.

On the cul-de-sac, Herald Fisher lived with his wife Susan in the light blue house. Susan was a kindergarten teacher and Herald was an asshole. He also did something with banking derivatives – the stuff that crashed the economy and made my pills so expensive. They have drop belly palms in their yard. Those are like normal palms, but shorter, fatter, and uglier like Herald. They suck up the water and turned their yard into a desert mess. Perfect plants for an asshole banker.

I should be more gracious. The power has been out and I can’t watch my stories. There is a fan on the sixteenth green that runs and runs and runs. It’s all I can hear now that there are no more airplanes, traffic, or air conditions running. It must be on solar power or some hippy dippy shit like that.

Herald had been sneaking out to the surrounding houses on Florence. He’d sneak cans out of pantries for him and Susan. That’s not the only time he snuck around the neighborhood getting him some, but I don’t want to tell no stories.

At first he carried the cans by the armload. He dropped a can of corn on the street. When he reached for it, he dropped a jar of olives and it shattered. A crispy Canadian came for him. As it reached for him, its skin split down to the bone around one shoulder like blackened trout. Herald ran around his house three times. He ran to the house next door. Once the zombie followed him, he ran to his back door and got in without the thing seeing him. I’m not sure the Canadian had eyes after the fire, but that’s none of my business.

After that, Herald brought a backpack on his little thieving trips. Once he cleaned out most of the houses on Florence, he had a few close calls. More than a few of the neighbors had turned zombie inside their houses and he went and let them out. The neighborhood was really going to hell, I tell you. So, he moved on to the first houses on Burke.

That’s where he found Hellen. Hellen’s husband traveled for work – insurance, I think. And Hellen was a slut. Herald visited Hellen before while her husband was away long before the zombies came. I’m surprised it took him this long to get over there. I wouldn’t have thought even a zombie apocalypse could keep Herald away from an afternoon delight.

They came out of the house and ran to the car in Hellen’s driveway. She had a bag packed. Herald leaned over and gave her a kiss before he tried to start the car. At first it sounded flooded. After the starter screamed and screamed metal on metal without turning over, I started to think the sparkplugs were fouled.

My husband Joe worked at the Ford plant his whole working life and still did all the work on our cars after retirement right up until he passed even after the engines were all computerized.

Eventually, the dead started coming in out of the woods, over the fairways, and from around the houses. Blue Mr. Palmer with his black socks was one of them. Another was that girl from the overpass that had been chewed down to the bone. She did not belong in this neighborhood, but Herald trying and trying to start that car brought them in from all directions.

They opened the car doors and made a run for it. Herald shoved them out of his way and Hellen cried.

They got almost to his house again when Hellen slipped on a can of corn in the street and fell on her ass. Herald ran back for her and one of them latched onto him. It was that girl from the overpass again. She moved fast for a poor girl with all her muscle nearly chewed off. Hellen just screamed, bringing more of the dead after them up Florence and off the golf course. Susan ran outside holding a giant wooden paddle like for white water rafting or something. Why they have one, I got no idea, but she clobbered this dead girl and took her head clean off her shoulders.

The three of them ran inside the Fisher house like one, happy family. Herald had his wife and his mistress in the same house. He was holding his arm When he went in, so I don’t know if he got bit or not. If he did, I don’t have to tell you what that means. I did see that Susan got that can of corn after she rescued Herald. She’s a spitfire. He should have stuck with her, if he knew what was good for him. Clearly, he doesn’t. He has drop belly palms in his yard. Their house was surrounded by the zombies now, so I thought it may be a while before I saw them come home again, if at all.

I thought life was about to get boring, but then a blue Corolla came screaming into the neighborhood. We had speed bumps, but the car hit them hard enough to knock the damn axles out of the bottom of the thing. Joe would have buried his head to see a car treated like that – even a car out of Japan.

Zombies hit it as it roared by. Their bodies splattered and the windows cracked. The car nearly slid off the road making the turn onto Burke, but it recovered. Then, it slammed to a stop in Helen’s driveway with black streaks of rubber left behind it. Helen’s husband jumped out and ran into the open front door of the house even with all the zombies closing in.

His name was Dave. Dave is a good name for insurance, I think – the same way Joe is a name for a man that works on cars his whole life and to my knowledge never stepped out with any tart like Hellen.

Hellen must have been great in bed to have all these men hauling tail through hordes of zombies to get to her, but that’s none of my business.

2

Dave didn’t close the front door when he went to look for Hellen. I was hungry and wanted to go get my day’s rations from the dry goods. I was almost out of oatmeal. My pills were on the verge of running out eventually too and then I would be in real trouble too. I could barely afford them anymore anyway. Joe used to do off the books work for the golfing magazine they delivered to hotels for the tourists. That helped afford the pills, but he was dead now and the neighborhood was sick with zombies.

Dave left the door open and I wasn’t going to miss this for the world. Someone had to bear witness even if the neighborhood association wasn’t answering the phone anymore.

Mr. Palmer reached the step first. He’s always up in everyone’s business even though he’s dead. Palmer drifted inside and then other zombies followed him. I lost count after fifteen, but they kept going in Hellen and Dave’s front door.

I was sure he was getting eaten inside where his wife and everybody else would miss it and never hear him scream. I guessed they might see his car and piece it together.

Then, Mr. Palmer came crashing out the picture window backward ass over head into the yard. As he got up, Palmer still had his floppy hat on, but now his back was porcupined with shards of glass. Dave jumped out after him still holding one of their dining room chairs. It was sleek and black with hard edges. I don’t like that new modern design. I prefer natural wood.

The other zombies reached out after him and got caught on the jagged edges of glass still in the frame. Palmer reached for Dave and Dave clobbered him across the skull with the postmodern dining chair. The chair came apart and Palmer went down. I thought that was the end of him, but the old zombie gained his feet again. He still had on the floppy hat and the shards of glass in his back. Palmer was hard-headed even when he was alive, I tell you.

Dave ran for it dodging zombies the whole way. The neighborhood was still packed with them from Herald and Hellen’s failed getaway. Dave ran the other way away from the cul-de-sac. He had no idea Hellen was alive and holed up in the house of her secret lover and her lover’s wife on Florence Street. Dave ran for the Bend and zigzagged his way toward the burned out house on Holsten.

It was then I realized that Palmer’s hose was still leaking water in the side yard that was a swamp. They must have been on a well, but they would still need power to run the pumps. Weird.

I don’t move as fast as I did before I was eighty, but I wasn’t going to miss this. I shuffled into my sewing room with my binoculars to see what happened next.

Dave cut between two of the houses and headed toward the rough of the fifteenth hole behind Holsten. That’s when the girl grabbed him. I ratcheted the focus to see if I could see her sink her teeth in.

She was alive. It was Skye. She was Maud and Kevin’s college-age daughter and had big boobs just like her mother. Skye’s were still perky though. Her mother wore the most obscene moumou dresses. Skye’s clothes were too tight. I have no idea where she could have been hiding all this time.

Skye was a neighborhood girl. She did smoke pot out on the golf course at night with boys. I called the association about it, but they didn’t seem to care.

She held onto Dave and he hugged her back. I thought I had found another neighborhood secret. She was half his age. She looked scared and he made no grabs to her curvy parts. Must have just been an end of the world comfort hug. That’s a shame. Would have served Hellen right.

The zombies closed in on both sides of them. Dave had given up his chance to escape. They turned the corner and continued their run along Holsten.

Dave cut to the right as the street got clogged. He made a step with his hands and hoisted her over one of the fences. He couldn’t see the three zombies in the backyard where he was putting her. Skye screamed and tried to run away from them. Dave scrambled over the fence and picked up a hard metal gardening rake. Dave speared their heads with the teeth of the tool and slammed them into the picnic table until their skulls split open like melons.

The third one got past him, but Skye grabbed it by its ears. The zombie was rotten, but it looked like Evan’s no account nephew. Before I could get a good look at the zombie’s face, Skye rammed it down onto a sprinkler head and that was that.

That’s when the fence collapsed on the west side of the yard. Skye and Dave ran for the shed on the back corner of the lot. The zombies surrounded them. It had to sound like being in a tin can full of rocks rolling down the hill. They were trapped.

That’s when I heard the motorcycles. They came up my street slowly and passed my house – all five of them. The zombies left the shed and went for the sound. Dave and Skye didn’t come out. They were going to miss their chance. As the zombies left the blue house on Florence, Herald slipped out. He had a bandage on one of his hands. I don’t have to tell you that’s not good. When he saw the bikers, he went back inside.

One of the bikers looked like he had a cop’s uniform on. He was also wearing a necklace of old, grey ears. I don’t think he was on police business. Who knows if he ever was a cop? They took their time rolling up the street and used machetes to chop through the heads of any zombies that got close.

They looked to be headed toward the clubhouse. There was booze there. Probably money too if anyone still cared about such things. They stopped a few doors down past my house.

I shuffled back through to the guest room and watched as a couple of them went inside. That was the Cooper’s place. I was pretty sure they were out of town when the zombies came, but I didn’t know for certain. I didn’t recognize any of the men – none that went inside, nor the cop or the other one that waited outside.

I needed to eat something, but I wasn’t about to miss this. Were they looters? Did they know the Coopers? Was there something inside they wanted?

I had no idea, but I was aiming to find out.

3

The bikers that were waiting outside talked to each other for a while, chopping at any zombie’s head that wandered too close.

Out of nowhere they stood to attention. I shifted my view and saw Dave and Skye jumping over a fence across the street. They must have thought the coast was clear and come out of the shed after all. Too late, I think, they spotted the bikers who’d already spotted them.

Dave and Skye turned to run away, but came face to face with three zombies that had been taking their sweet time coming down the street to check out the noise the bikers had made. They were from one of the poor neighborhoods across the highway, I think. I imagine their clothes didn’t look so great before they were dead.

Skye screamed, turned, and ran straight into one of the bikers as he headed across the street with his machete. He grabbed her by the hair as he swung the blade into the closest zombie’s skull. He swung again, and chopped into the side of Dave’s leg, just above the knee. He went down hard, in a spray of blood.

Dave was attacked by both the other zombies.

The biker dragged Skye, screaming and kicking, back across the street to the Cooper’s place. His friends were laughing and cheering. They took Skye inside. They probably wanted her for her big boobs and tight clothes. I guess dressing like a slut hadn’t done her any good, but it’s not my business, as the kids say.

Dave’s screams drew all the remaining zombies in the street. Soon he was completely lost in a pile-up of the undead. It wasn’t long before he grew silent. That was something, at least.

I was just about to go eat my oatmeal, thinking nothing else was going to happen for a few minutes, when I heard Dave’s car start up again. I scurried from my guest room back out to the front window.

Hellen and Susan were cat-fighting over the car. Susan drew back and punched Hellen in the face. She then pulled Hellen from the car by her hair, jumped in, slammed the door, and drove off. Hellen was left lying in the middle of the street, panting and looking around wildly.

Herald came stumbling out of the house toward Hellen. He wasn’t himself anymore. He’d definitely suffered a bite and was coming down with the zombie herpes or whatever was causing this thing to spread. Herald was bound to catch something eventually one way or the other the way he played the field like that. That explained his sickly, slow state now.

Zombies also headed her way from the golf course where they’d been meandering around since the loud noises had stopped.

I nearly jumped out of my skin as I heard a couple of the motorcycles roar to life. Moments later, two bikers rolled up on Hellen. One jumped off his bike and sliced Herald’s head into three slabs. By the time the biker had dispatched Herald, Hellen had made it to her feet. She ran back to the Fisher’s light blue house, and tried to slam the door in the bikers’ faces as they pursued her. She wasn’t fast enough. They pushed their way inside. The door was closed after them. I guess they wanted to find out about her bedroom skills as well. If you ask me, she was getting what she deserved for cheating on her husband with a married man, the little homewrecker.

Zombie apocalypse may be the worst time to air your dirty laundry. I’m sure Herald would agree, if he still had his head in one piece. Now that he was gone, I realized I might miss him a bit. Things were going to get dull, if all there was to watch was bikers and zombies behaving badly.

Men are such pigs. I’d known this most of my life, but I’d always had my Joe, so I didn’t worry about it. Never had to play the field or worry about the zombie herpes. He was a good man who went to church and held doors open for ladies. He was nothing like these heathen bikers who took the women they wanted. Or the men who had cheated on them or with them.

A loud boom shook my house. It startled me so bad that I dropped my binoculars.

It took me what seemed like forever to pick them up off the floor, damn my old bones.

By the time I looked back outside, all the zombies were heading toward the direction the boom had come from. I followed their path with my binoculars and found a trail of black smoke floating into the sky. It was coming from an overturned blue Corolla. Susan had wrecked. She’d flipped the car and it was on fire.

Susan never had been a good driver. She was a good woman and a great teacher, but never a good driver. She always drove too fast and had totaled three cars in the last seven years. I sometimes wondered if she drove crazy because that stupid husband of hers. Living with crazy will make you crazy, Lord knows. Maybe she drove like she had a hot date with the Devil because she was trying to escape that bastard. Excuse my French, as the soldiers say.

The bikers emerged from the Fisher’s house, one of them dragging Hellen along with him. Her clothes were ripped and she stumbled along to keep up.

My stomach growled. I needed to eat, but life outside was so interesting. You miss a few minutes and the stories are hard to follow.

They climbed on their bikes, forcing Hellen to ride bitch, and went back to the Cooper’s. I know what it’s called on account of reality TV replacing game shows on the TV. I didn’t know what they were going to do now, but I had to know what happened next.

I headed back to the guest room to find out.

4

All was quiet around the neighborhood, unless you count the moaning and groaning of the dog pile on top of Dave. The small reprieve gave me a moment to take a bite of my now cold oatmeal. Waiting so long made the flakes of oats in my bowl turn to mush, reminding me of Hellen’s backyard barbeque last summer. The little trollop attempted to get the community together to eat and play games. Only the food was burnt on the grill or mushy from her kitchen and the only games she played were the ones she snuck Dave behind the shed for.  Dave must not have been very good at the games she chose, because they were never missing for long periods of time, which caused me to giggle behind my hand. But I don’t want to tell no stories, so I’ll leave it at that.

I returned my empty bowl of oats to the sink and then headed back to the window in the guest room. Susan’s upside down car was still billowing with smoke and attracting a lot of attention from the zombies.

Commotion through the livingroom window of the Cooper’s house drew my attention back to the large window. Each Christmas the Coopers set up a large Christmas tree in front of this window. The curtain obscured what transpired, until it was ripped from the glass revealing Skye’s scared face. Her eyes were wild with panic and she searched for a way to escape the commotion in the house. A large shadow reached up and pulled her hair, yanking young Sky away from her escape, her mouth wide open in a silent scream.

Three loud bangs sounded one after the other, light flashing against the window with each shot. My palm went to the frame. My Joe had enough guns that I knew that was the sound of gunfire.

Soon after a body soared through the Christmas tree window, landing on the cement drive below. The noise of gunfire having already drawn the zombies from the back nine of the golf course. Mr. Cooper was standing in the window holding his shotgun. I’ve seen a few guns in my day, my dear Joe owning some of them, but the gun he held reminded me of the ones you’d see military men using in movies. Looks like Cooper was home after all and he wasn’t too friendly with the bikers.

Mr. Cooper looked quite wild standing in the window, the wind blowing against his determined features. If I were a younger version and I hadn’t met my Joe so early on, I’d have bid him a hello. All this excitement was giving me the vapors.

Mr. Cooper turned back into the house, only to have that strumpet Hellen jump all over him with her gratitude, distracting him. Leaving him blind to the man standing behind him. There was no loud bang to accompany Mr. Cooper’s wide eyes and mouth of death as the man with the cop uniform stabbed him in the back and pushed him out the window to the waiting zombies in his driveway. What a waste. That cured the vapors in a hurry.

Hellen turned to the imposter cop with frightened eyes. If I didn’t know any better, the imposter cop resembled Hutch from this cop show my Joe used to watch. Hellen trembled with fear as Hutch sneered at her. I thought this was the end for Hellen as I gripped onto the trim of my window. The girl was finally going to get what she had coming to her. Not saying she deserved this, mind you. I just mean that our actions lead us to where we end up, is all.  It was only too bad Susan wasn’t here to witness it.

The second Hutch moved closer to Hellen another one of the bikers appeared with Skye behind him. Sky’s clothes were still ripped, but pulled closed as she stabbed Hutch in the back with the same machete that took Dave down in the street. Hutches eyes went wide as Hellen moved out of the way to allow Skye to shove him out the window to the teeth and claws below.

Even with that nice picture window busted wide open like a bar fight in a cowboy movie, it was still tough to see. People kept moving in and out of my view in the scuffle. I’ll tell it as best I saw it on account of I already started this story.

Skye stood above the window breathing heavy, her chest rising and falling rapidly with each breath. The machete still clutched in her hand as blood dripped down her arm. The only remaining motorcycle man came up behind her, seeming to have changed sides somewhere behind the curtain, and wrapped his arms around her in comfort. Did they know each other?

I was having trouble following this. No one was watching their back even with the neighborhood sick with zombies. People kept flying through windows like not a soul knew how to lay low and stay quiet. Did they see zombies all over my house? No. Because I know when to keep still and quiet. A zombie apocalypse … still and quiet time, kids. And not for nothing, but the big strong men in the neighborhood were getting themselves killed and eaten on the regular. I’m just saying.

The question of how and why Skye had managed to make nice with the last living biker in the neighborhood was left unanswered as movement caught my eye. Up the street from where the overturned Corolla laid and black smoke billowed into the air, Susan was moving with a slow gimping gate toward the Cooper’s house. From this angle I couldn’t figure out if she was still human or infected with the Zombie Herp. She glanced around slowly, making me think she was still with the living. What a trooper. Tougher than the men in the neighborhood for sure. But a terrible driver.

Looking back and forth between the living in the Cooper’s house and Susan walking slowly down the road. I don’t know why she wasn’t drawing the attention of other Zombies, but she was out strolling as if on her Sunday morning walks.

My afternoon nap was fast approaching, my eyes growing heavy with sleep, but I couldn’t pull myself away now. Susan was making it up the stairs to the Cooper’s house, drawing the attention of the three I could see inside. At this point I assumed everyone else inside was killed, but I couldn’t be sure. Skye pulled her machete back and the last motorcycle man standing grabbed Mr. Cooper’s gun from the floor, preparing themselves for whatever waited outside.

Susan opened the door.

No one in this neighborhood locked their doors, except Joe and me. Which is probably another reason why I wasn’t overrun with the rest of them when the Zombie Herp broke out. Once Skye recognized Susan, she lowered her weapon and a small sob escaped her, relief flashing across her face.

Susan didn’t acknowledge her as she walked straight passed her and up to Hellen. She stood there for a moment before lashing forward like a snakes strike and stabbing Hellen in the stomach. Shocked excitement came from my mouth as I pressed my face to the glass. Truth be told, I didn’t think Susan had it in her to take care of business.

Hellen took a step backward, holding her stomach, watching Susan, pleading for help she would not receive. Susan followed, but only to finish pushing her out the window to her waiting death below. Out the window – the new way to say goodbye and mean it.

Fate had a hand in Hellen’s death, letting Susan take her from this world. If you ask me, she deserved everything she got for sneaking around with a married man, but I ain’t one to gossip, so you didn’t hear that from me.

Susan turned back around, facing the others in Mr. Cooper living room. Both the motorcycle man and Skye looked shocked, but didn’t move to intercept her. You got to know when someone isn’t to be screwed with if you don’t want to find yourself going through a window, you see.

My eyes grew even heavier as I blinked longer than normal. When I opened them, the Christmas tree window at the Coopers’ was now empty. Hurriedly, I moved back to the front room. I contemplated the events of the day as I stood waiting by the window. Naps were very important at my age, but who knows what I’d miss sleeping away the day.

Something was up over at Palmer’s house. His mail-order bride appeared to be watching things from her windows too. What a nosey busybody she was. None of this was her business.

5

The mail-order hussy kept staring out the window, eyeballing everything like she was the keeper of the kingdom. I don’t want to tell no stories, but I’ve seen plenty out of her to tell me everything I need to know about her character. I was about to bang on the window and let her know I was keeping an eye on her, when she jerked her head to one side with a look of confusion that gave me pause. I tried to follow to where her eyes were leading, but she was looking past my house. Even from our distance, I could see her eyes widen as if she was worried about what she was seeing. I quickly but carefully got up and moved to one of the front windows of the house.

With my curiosity peaked, I hurried to the first window nearest me. I peered out and scanned the area. Nothing caught my eye as pertinent though. Oh, there were zombies mulling about, but nothing that would warrant the look of concern that she was wearing. I grabbed my spare binoculars that I conveniently kept next to the window sill for no particular reason. I could see the fan still going on the seventeenth green, but there was nothing else. Knowing something had caught that skank minx’s eye, I moved to the next window.

The eighteenth green was the first thing I saw as I slowly slid the curtain to the side. The sight of the usually well manicured green made me smile until I noticed that it was not as pristine as it normally was. Grass sprouts were popping up all over it and the finely trimmed fringe was starting to creep into the putting area. The eighteenth hole was the signature hole for the course and brought people from all over to try and tame the difficult par five hole. It was also one of the sites to a local legend also, where a mistress and her lover were shot to death when the husband tracked them there and confronted their misdeeds. I don’t want to tell no stories, but before this current mess started it was the most interesting thing I had ever seen. I was about to move to another window when I caught movement near the yard bordering the green. I squinted and could see the shoulders of a person trying to hide behind a tree. Slowly the person rounded it until they came into view.

Leslie Whitaker stood firm with her back up against the large elm. On the opposite side of the tree was a zombie. It sniffed the air as if it was following a scent, but couldn’t quite nail down where it was coming from. Leslie looked frantic as she inched around the tree every time the zombie moved. In a matter of only a minute, they had made three complete revolutions around it. My heart raced at the sight and I wondered how many times had they done this before I was even watching it play out. The look of worry on that foreign exchange bimbo was finally understood. Leslie looked terrified as she made her current pass and I could see her face and the exhaustion that was setting in. I then started to wonder which would give up first: the clueless zombie or the miserable hag Leslie.

I know what I’m about to say would get me kicked out of church, but I really hated that old bat. For many years she was the biggest gossip queen in the community and always seemed to have something to say about everybody. That alone would be a good enough reason to not like her, but she was always my biggest rival each year when the neighborhood association would judge the spring blooms. Every year they would hold a contest for the best spring flower presentation and every year she would win the contest. I never understood why they chose her’s over mine. Her daffodils always looked under-watered and she had the worst placements on pansies I had ever seen. The camellias were her only strong point, but she always planted too many of them, in my opinion.

I know the only reason she won was because she was best friends with that other Canadian import Joan Macleod. Joan was the wife of the head of the homeowners association. Add that to the fact that she lived in the house bordering the eighteenth green and I never stood a chance even though we all knew it was Leslie’s Mexican landscaper that did all the work. I would see him come over at night and work quietly on the yard and the next day Leslie would spray water all over her to make it look like she was putting in a sweaty days work on them. I once confronted her on it and they had me excluded from the contest the following year. After that, I gave up trying.

The look of anguish on Leslie’s face as she made another pass snapped me from my wayward thoughts. If her life were not in the balance during the chase around that elm, it would’ve been funny. Again and again they repeated the dance of allusion and just when I thought Leslie would get the bright idea to make a run for the house, she would repeat it nevertheless. I actually felt sorry for her and was actually considering doing something to help her, but I’m old and in her own words “irrelevant” in the neighborhood as she so curtly told me that day I confronted her. I would hate to ruin her day by proving her wrong, you see. I hid a smile as I watched her stumble on the most recent pass.

Leslie scrambled back up to her shoeless feet just as quickly as she could. The short delay though had allowed the zombie to come around and see his target. The sight of his prey invigorated him and he ramped up his speed to catch her. Leslie came to the realization that hiding was no longer an option. She made only a half rotation around the tree before she finally made the attempt for the back door of her house.

The zombie who looked a lot like that awful kid from the cul-de-sac. Oh what was his name? I should know it because I called the law on him many times over the years. The most recent when he and his hoodlum friends were smoking the Devil’s lettuce on the eighteenth green. Fred, that was his name, it came to me as he came around the backside of the tree and was momentarily confused by his prey not being there yet again. He spun around a few times before he caught sight of Leslie once more. The chase, from that point, if you want to call it that was one of the saddest things I had witnessed since this whole mess started. I don’t want to tell no stories, but if Leslie had taken better care of herself and gotten that bum hip fixed, she would’ve made it with no problem. Little Fred was not setting any land speed records as he shambled after her. Obviously tired from her game of ring around the rosey’s, she was pushing herself as fast as she could go which was only half the speed nasty Fred was going even with him being dead. The fifty feet to the back door was more than enough distance for Fred to catch up to her.

She fell to ground giving up all hope at the first contact from the Fred creature. Even through my double paned glass and the distance between us, I heard her first scream as teeth met flesh. I could see the spray of blood as her neck was ripped opened and the arteries released the pressure in them. The screams silenced first and a minute later the movement ceased. I guess Fred didn’t like the taste of the bitter hag though. Shortly after she quit moving, he got up and wandered away as if nothing had happened.

Once Fred staggered out of sight I let the curtain fall back into place and decided to go check on the mail-order floozy and see what she might be up to. As I made the slow trek back across the house, I thought about where Leslie had fallen. She landed right in the middle of her flower garden and it made me snicker a little at that thought. Then, I wondered if her decaying body would actually help her flowers grow next spring.

6

Now I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a mail order bride from Thailand, but that Mr. Palmers bride was nothing but skin and bones I tell you, skin and bones. That little thing needs to eat something, put some meat on those bones. Not to mention the fact she was always running around with hardly any clothes on. Poor thing probably couldn’t get anything to stay on that frame.

I had to catch my breathe a moment before opening the curtain back up to check on that skinny young hussy and would you believe it, as quick as I cracked it open Leslie Whitaker’s husband, Chase Whitaker, pulled up on a bicycle right up to Mr. Palmer’s front yard.  Her husband just turned into a zombie and if Mr. Chase made it over so fast, why didn’t he help Leslie? I’m gonna need some more oats, but those will have to wait.

As soon as Chase’s bike hit the ground, that tiny thing, Nan I think her name was, yes, it was Nan, she sprinted out of the house so fast and jumped right in his arms and they started kissing.  He is at least twice her age. Both their spouses just turned into zombies and they are acting like this? Even if the mourning period in the apocalypse is understandably abbreviated, I’d still say that was quite abrupt even taking zombies into account. I try to keep to my self and all, yet most neighborhood things end up here anyway, so how could I not have heard of this affair?  Normally I wouldn’t watch something like this, but since I have already seen so much I figured I would keep the curtain open for a moment at least till I get some more oats is all. Someone must bear witness.

One of those crispy Canadians must have heard the sinners kissing because three of them came right around the corner of Palmers’ house. They were too busy kissing to notice anything happening around them though. Which reminds me of the first few weeks after I met Joe. He was a tall drink of water and fresh out of the military too. He used to work on vehicles in the Army which is how he got his job at the Ford plant. I was on a date with another boy from church and well, this other boy started getting a little too friendly in the way only Joe was allowed. I called for help and there Joe was, he socked that ole Chris Cooper right in the mouth. I know I’m not supposed to suffer violence, but I sure did like that in a tingly sort of way.

I thought about making some noise to get their attention, but that is none of my business anyway. It’s a zombie apocalypse for goodness sake. A person has to be responsible for lifting their own head up and chewing on the scenery from time to time to keep the dead from chewing upon you.

Sure enough as soon as that Chase noticed the crispy ones, he dropped that tiny thing right on her back side and she screamed in pain. She tried to get up and couldn’t. Go figure. I’m just saying, if she had a little more meat on her, she probably wouldn’t have been hurt from such a short fall.  Fragile thing.

Mr. Chase ran right over and pushed the lead Canadian zombie right into the other ones. They stumbled back a bit, but was he crazy? Did he forget to bring a weapon with him? That’s the difference between him and my Joe. Joe would have been ready for a fight, if he knew there was a zombie apocalypse afoot ahead of time. That and my Joe wouldn’t be off cheating getting into trouble in the first place. He always knew where his bed was made. I miss him. I miss him more now than ever.

Five more zombies came from around the corner of the other side of the house. Ole Mr Chase grabbed his adulterer by the arms lifted her up in the air. With what seemed to be all his might, he tossed her right up on the first story roof.  She slid a bit scratching at the shingles, her arms slipped, and hung over the edge, but the gutter caught her  I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t have all that meat on her bones after all.

Mr. Chase made a dash for the side yard and he slipped in the muddy water from Mr. Palmer’s hose that’d been making a mess all this time. Those first five zombies dropped down on him quick like and Chase didn’t make a sound.  He must have been hurting though. The apocalypse is not forgiving of people trying to be the good guy, it seems.

The gutter creaked loudly, giving way a few inches and Nan screamed pushing up on the gutter that was now giving way.  I’ve been telling them for years now to replace those old things.  Making our neighborhood look like garbage. Maybe if they would have, she wouldn’t have been in this mess after all.

Well, I’ll be… I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw zombie Mr. Palmer limping ever so slowly around the corner of the house. Earless and still wearing his floppy hat he made his way just below his adulterous mail order bride. Waving one hand up at her clawing for her to come down.  Now I am sure he was mumbling zombie nothings but you and I both know she was staring back at him wondering if he knew she was unfaithful. Serves her right – the doubt and the fear, I mean. He brought her all the way over here, put her up in his house like that, and this is how she repays him?

The gutter made a slow whining sound as it slowly lowered her down to the zombies just below her. She cried huge tears that dripped down all over the bloody corpse of Mr. Palmer. His zombie body didn’t seem to care as she screamed for help or maybe forgiveness. I don’t think his human self would have cared that much more either though. With one last squeal from that old gutter, she fell right into Mr. Palmer’s clawing arm. They both collapsed to the ground as the rest of the zombies pilled on top. The apocalypse ain’t so forgiving of people wanting to be the bad girl either.

Now I don’t want to tell no stories, but wait till ole Mrs. Agnes gets back next door. She would keel over dead if she heard about this. With it being a zombie apocalypse, I guess she might keel over dead and then get back up to start walking around again. I normally don’t go outside these days, but this is just about the time she would get back on her electric cart from her nightly drives to see her grandson and his friends a few streets over. Crazy ole Agnes. I wouldn’t be surprised if she hadn’t even noticed that the world has changed at all. She was clueless of the goings on around here right up until I clued her in.

Well, at this point, the neighborhood was pretty dead in every sense of the phrase. I would have turned in as I was tuckered out and my nerves were frazzled. But then sure enough something else started up, wouldn’t you know.

I moved back through my house again – slowly mind you. This was all taking a lot out of me. Our last friends were holed up in Cooper’s house and zombies up and found them. I could see that boy, and Skye, and crazy ole murdery Susan hacking away. I was really, really tired, but this felt like the final act for the neighborhood and I’m the type that needs to see how the story ends no matter how sad it might be.

7

Crazy old Agnes was probably the kind of granny any kid would want. She’s younger than me, but I still call her old because her husband was much older than me. Besides, anybody who makes it past 65 is old and while people’s finances are none of my business, I know she draws a social security check along with her inheritance from her late husband. Some people say she married him for his money, but if she did, I imagine she wouldn’t live in my neighborhood. I never met the man. He was long gone before she moved into the stucco house next door. People say he was decent enough to put up with her shenanigans, but what would they know? You know I don’t tell stories, but people talk. I think they’re jealous is all.

Aside from that grandkid, I like Agnes. She goes to see him with a basket filled to the brim with her homemade cookies and treats that she makes from scratch. She brings a gallon of sweet tea, too that she slow brews all day in the sun while she slaves away in that organic garden she’s so proud of.

It was getting later. I don’t recall her ever being very late coming home. Maybe she was already back and in her garden. That’d be just like her. Oblivious to everything. I can see the back corner of her garden from my bathroom window. I bet she’d have a fit if those things trample her garden.

I don’t have grandkids, so I wouldn’t know what it’s like, but truth be told, that boy of her daughter’s is a no-good delinquent. I don’t want to tell no stories, but I saw the kid out behind Agnes’s persimmon tree smoking. It’s none of my business, but I can’t be sure it was regular tobacco he was smoking.

I had Bob, my gardener, trim my hibiscus plant a while back so I could see out of my bathroom window. It was from here that I spied that kid smoking behind her tree, the little shit. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across the newly planted rows of lettuce. The bright orange persimmons are hanging heavy on its branches. A rusty old shovel leaned against the tree. Somehow she got that good-for-nothing grandkid to shore up her fence, which I guess is timely considering the goings on. Pole beans climbed the chicken wire ready for picking and shelling. I don’t go outside much, but Agnes’s garden would come in handy, I suppose, if this thing drug on as it appeared to be doing.

Just as I turned through the kitchen to get a good look at the goings on at Cooper’s house, that kid shoots through the neighbor’s yard and comes to a screeching halt in that electric golf cart between the garden gate and Agnes’s back door. His hoodlum friends are hanging off that cart like a couple of railroad bums on a boxcar. Agnes held tight to the armrest as they bounced over the uneven lawn. I should have known Agnes would give into the kid. He isn’t even legal to drive because he hasn’t got his driver’s license yet let alone allow his friends hanging all over like that. They were lucky not to roll that electric cart over on its side.

The grandkid said something to Agnes as he helped her from the cart. His friend, the big one with long hair jumped from the cart before it stopped moving with a blue duffle bag slung over his shoulder. The other one, a pipsqueak of a kid with green hair and jewelry all over his face and ears had Agnes’s basket of goodies in one hand and her recycled plastic milk jug of sweet tea in the other. Agnes was always telling me how it’s best to reuse things instead of throwing everything away all the time. Sometimes she’d get a bit preachy about it, but then again that’s partly why she’s crazy. She thinks people are causing our planet to warm up, too. I don’t want to tell no stories, but I believe Agnes is one of those hippies from back in the day even though I know she takes a bath because she doesn’t stink.

That no good green-haired pipsqueak followed her inside the house while the grandkid and the big kid secured the cart and locked the garden gate. That duffle bag sure looked heavy. Something caught their eyes, so I followed their gaze with my binoculars. Sure enough, the whole neighborhood of zombies not occupied at Cooper’s decided the party was at Agnes’s house. I had a swarm of zombies on both sides of my house at that point. People just don’t understand that you’ve got to shut up and stay still! The grandkid reached over the garden fence and grabbed the shovel and the big kid dropped the duffle bag.

That mail order bride zombie was quick! I didn’t even see her get up and come over. She was upon them before you could say ‘Bob’s your uncle’ probably because she didn’t weigh more than eighty pounds soaking wet. The big kid was still unzipping that duffle bag when the grandkid swung the shovel like a baseball bat. He played little league, ya know. Agnes would brag on him at times, which got on my nerves, but what do I know? I don’t have grandkids nor would I want them. He sure did have Agnes fooled. It’s none of my business, but that kid is no angel like she thinks he is.

But he could swing that shovel! When it made contact, that skinny little mail order bride zombie’s head exploded. I remembered as a kid when my brother shot a watermelon with bird shot. Pieces of it flew for yards, but brains are nothing like the pink insides of a watermelon and zombie brains are nasty, all gooey and gummed up. It splattered and stuck to the slats on the garden fence.

That big kid pulled the biggest gun I’ve ever seen out of that duffle bag just in time to take out Mr. Palmer. Looked like he and his wife reconciled for a common purpose. Death did not do them part after all. I could hear the gunshot and then Palmer’s stupid floppy hat blew off his head finally. I was starting to think that thing was magic. The report of that gun gave me such a start even though I knew it was coming. My old heart gave a painful, frightened throb in my chest.

Palmer fell beside his mail order bride, headless, lifeless mutations that were probably happy to finally be twice dead. I don’t know where zombies go after they die, certainly not heaven, but good riddance just the same. People like the Palmers weren’t headed there anyway.

One of those undead bikers ambled toward the boys. He’d caught a face-full of Palmer’s head. The gummy ooze dripped from his chin onto his chest. His mouth hung open. I think he was screaming and howling like they do, but I couldn’t hear anything. It didn’t take long for the crispy Canadians to join him too. At this point, I couldn’t tell them apart, but one of them was still smoldering. Wafts of smoke willowed behind him. Poor Chase Whitaker had joined the small horde. The grandkid lifted the shovel and the big kid readied his weapon.

That’s when I heard more commotion over from Cooper’s. Zombies from there were coming Agnes’ way. Whatever the three survivors over there were doing was distracting the ones in the back of the mob on Agnes’ side. As they crossed my yard going both ways, I could hear them bumping into the siding of my house all around. It sounded like limbs in a storm. One of them hit my living room window hard. It made me jump worse than the gun shot had. I expected to hear glass shatter in, but the window held for now. I’m not sure if it was one of their hands or if one of the creatures had walked bodily into the glass, but they had gotten far too close for my comfort.

8

Stories. Sometimes they’re all we have to tell. Especially trapped in a world growing smaller and smaller with that damn-blasted Internet and the eternally self-involved youngster generation roaming the streets snapping pictures of themselves in every which possible way. When I was a young girl, we didn’t dare behave in such lascivious ways. We were respectable and didn’t want our stories being told by every whippersnapper to blow into town.

At least most of us. There was always that one young girl who wanted more, wanted to travel and see the world…and, more importantly, let the world see her. Some wanted to dance across the city and flit about like fireflies.

They had stories to tell.

Me? I did want more, wanted to tell the whole dang planet my story. Thing is, it never happened. And so I found solace in my own shrinking little universe—this little plot of land I call home; surrounded by a bunch of floozies, cheaters, and ne’er do wells.

But I don’t want…

Before I could complete my thought, Skye roared outta the Cooper’s house, naked from the waist up. Her fake boobs—I was certain they weren’t God-given as they seemed to sprout overnight two summers ago—barely bouncing with each footfall. Her mouth was open like she wanted to scream mercy to Jesus, but no sound reached my ears. At least none I could hear over the zombies crisscrossing my yard. I spun the dial on my hearing aids, hopin’ to hear something.

Nothing but the screech of feedback.

Soon after Skye flopped out from the Cooper’s, Susan followed after; arms outstretched, desperate to latch onto the younger, sprier woman. The look on Susan’s face was a combination of hunger and lust. She’d obviously given into the Z-Herp. But that look; it confirmed something I’d suspected in Susan long ago. That woman was keen to flirt with anyone, male or female. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but Susan spent a lot of energy denying the rumors. I never told anyone my suspicions and it looks like I wouldn’t have to at this point. No one gives a rat’s vagina, excise my French, if a zombie’s gay or straight.

Maybe other zombies…but who am I to judge?

Shame though, I was really betting on Susan to make it through after everything. Anyway…looked like our little neighborhood lost yet another survivor and, unless Skye managed to put enough distance between her and ol’ Herpe Sue, those expensive augmentations would go to serious waste.

Skye took a turn toward my front door. I backed away, hoping like Jesus she wouldn’t see me watching and would speed off to another home. I’m sure the boys raising hell over at Anges’s house would be happy to assist her. My supplies were limited and I had no desire to sit a spell with a talkative, topless, young thing.

Although, the stories Skye would have to share might make it…

No. It wasn’t worth the risk.

Unfortunately, Skye must have caught sight of my reflection in the glass. She came at the door desperate for help. I shuffled back to the door, my hip catching something fierce, and closed the blinds. Skye bellowed for my help and a weight of guilt, unlike any I’d ever felt, pressed down upon my conscience. I dared lift one of the blinds to sneak a peek, just in time to see Skye grab Susan by the head and slam her skull into a pile of bricks Joe had been meaning to use for a fire pit. There’s nothing like sitting around a fire gossiping with friends.

The young girl brought the woman’s head down over and over until the body ceased moving. Death was such a graceless piece of shit…no matter what the AARP pamphlets said.

Skye turned back to my house and raced up to the door, pressing her hands against the glass. Spread across her right palm was the mark of the undead. Skye had been bit. All that exposed real estate on her body and she got caught on the hand. The wound was deep and seething red. Tears streaked thick and black down the poor girl’s cheeks. She knew she was good as gone. No amount of prayer or penicillin would keep the Grim Reaper at bay now.

I reached an unsteady hand to the door knob, thinking I could let Skye in and maybe clean up her wound. But I knew that wouldn’t offer her any relief from the inevitable outcome of her fate. She’d be one of the Herp Z’s any time.

Skye turned away. Next thing I heard was the clank of metal. When she finally turned back, she had a piece of rebar in her hand. This was it…my story was finally going to come to an end. Skye was about to crash into my house and rip the flesh from my body and swallow whole my brain.

I assume that’s what the zombies do these days. I’d seen a film and read a book or two. Not really my cup of tea, but I always tried to keep my horizons broad.

My body went rigid as Skye pressed the end of the rebar against the wood of the door frame. She sobbed. Deep within the wells of her eyes an unfathomable sorrow rose. I’d always took pride in my ability to read people…to know their story before they spoke a word.

This was a story I didn’t want to know.

Skye reared back and slammed her head into the rebar. The end of the metal pipe pierced her eye and dove deep inside her head. She dropped lifeless before I realized I was weeping uncontrollably. Skye dropped with a dull thud. The young woman gave her life to ensure mine continued on.

Now that’s a story worth telling.

Only problem…it now seemed there was no one to tell.

9

I was counting myself lucky until the dead started closing in on my door. One of them was Skye’s boyfriend from the motorcycle gang. Looked like their daring rescues from earlier had been for nothing. I was the last witness and it wasn’t looking good for me either.

Then, the gunshots started up again from next door on Agnes’s side. A few of the dead turned away from my door. As quick as they took a few steps in that direction, their heads exploded one after another. They were making a mess of my lawn.

I heard shouting, but couldn’t make out the words. One more shot took off biker boyfriend’s head, but he staggered backward even without it. The body struck my latch and popped it open. I reached up to reengage the lock, but metal fell away from the frame into the floor.

The boys next door shouted some more and a few of the zombies followed. No more shots rang off, but I did hear the shovel ponging away. As the headless body slumped on my porch, a few others advanced on my house again.

I pressed my hands against the glass, leaving prints like a bad little girl. The dead pushed from the other side, leaving a bigger mess there. I never stood a chance. The broken door slid open and the creatures reached around for me.

Skye had killed herself to protect me, but they were inside a few seconds later. Isn’t that a kick in the artificial hip?

I let go of the door and shuffled through my house toward the garage. The dead followed me in. They weren’t moving fast, but at our shared pace it was a harrowing race. I grabbed up my pill organizer and a leather pouch of a few essentials I had there. I cursed myself for not packing a bag. You always think you’re going to have more time.

I reached the door between the kitchen and the garage and heard the scratching on the other side of the door. I knew I was asking for trouble going out there like this with my hands full. Joe would have been so mad at me. He had begged me to take care of things when this all started, but I’ve never been comfortable with guns and just couldn’t do it.

I opened the door and Joe lunged out as I expected. He was all claws. The three bite marks on his neck and chest had turned black. The blood had soaked into his favorite bowling shirt he had been wearing the day he was attacked and had ruined its color.

He actually pushed out too hard and staggered past me. I was able to get back into the garage ahead of him as he made the turn to come back at me. Other zombies from the neighborhood closed in behind him. I should have closed the door then, I guess, but it was Joe. I couldn’t shoot him when he got bit and I couldn’t abandon him now that he was a zombie like nothing we had before had ever mattered.

Why are you looking at me like that? Did I not mention when I started that Joe got bitten the first day the zombies rose and that I locked him up in the garage after he turned? Sorry about that. I thought with everything that had happened you had picked up on that. I should have begun there. My mind isn’t the steel trap it used to be. Joe was good with guns and if those things had not surprised him in the yard, he would have been just fine. He got it and got it bad. He got to the garage, but couldn’t get his gun. His last living breaths were spent asking me to hand him the pistol so he could finish it. I just couldn’t. Fortunately, he didn’t last long after that and I closed the garage before he turned. Tried to keep quiet in the house to keep from stirring him up in his condition.

I got a plastic cover off the workbench like the ones used to dust cover microscopes and plunked it over Joe’s head. I hated seeing him like that, his eyes all wild. He grabbed for me like a bear hug, but I ducked under and he couldn’t see me with the hood.

I got the door closed and the zombies inside clawed at the surface and knob. The lock was on their side, so it was only going to be a matter of time before they bumbled it open. Joe grabbed blindly at the sound of the door closing with that bag over his head and I had to duck again.

The electric garage door opener wasn’t going to work, of course. I dropped my pills and pouch on the back of the golf cart. I held my back as I strained for the red cord. I finally got it and popped the release.

I shuffled up to the garage door and tried to lift. I felt all its weight and all my years. The door to the kitchen opened and the zombies struggled with one another to be the first one to get to me. With a grunt, I got the dead weight of the garage to roll up its tracks. Through waves of dizziness, I saw hooded Joe turn toward the noise and track me.

I grabbed an old dog chain that used to belong to Buster years ago off one of the hooks and looped it over Joe’s head. He fought me a little as the zombies outside started moving toward the open garage. I whistled and got him moving my direction enough to tie him off to the back of the cart by the chain around his neck the way we used to walk Buster with the cart. As I unplugged the cart from the dead cord, I hoped it held the charge and I started to wonder if I was the first wife in the neighborhood to put her husband on a dog chain.

The cart started and Joe fought a little before I got him going in the right direction behind me. The zombies grabbed at me from all sides as I moved down the drive, but I made it to the street and turned in front of Agnes’ house.

The boys had abandoned the gun and both had shovels. They stopped bopping corpses long enough to stare at me.

I said, “Tell Agnes to hurry the hell up and let’s get out of here.”

They ran into the backyard. As the dead reached me, I made two circles in the street to stay ahead of them. Joe stumbled along behind me. I was about to leave her, but finally Agnes and three of the boys powered around on her cart. She had three huge bags stacked in her lap of crap she salvaged from her house. It would turn out most of it was useless. There had been more boys when she first got there, I thought, but only three including her grandson had survived her piddling around her house.

“Is that thing charged?” I said as we rode side by side toward the front of the neighborhood with the dead writhing all around us.

Agnes said, “Sure is, Edna Grace. Is that Joe on the chain behind you?”

“It is. Is that going to be a problem for any of you?” I said.

Then, she said, “No, but it’s a shame about his shirt.”

“I know. Right?” I agreed.

“I liked that shirt,” she said.

I didn’t like that at all. Told me that she had her eyes on Joe back before the zombies which was something I had always suspected. You got to watch the ones that want to get their teeth and claws into your man. They are everywhere, don’t you know?

By the time we reached the front of the neighborhood, her battery went dead and they are all piling around me along with Agnes’s bags. Those boys smelled in need of a shower or three. Her grandson Stew. Al was the other one. And then the one with green hair they called Greedo Second Shot for some reason I don’t understand. I’m sure he has a Christian name, but I don’t care enough to ask.

We made it about a mile up the road before we found you and your friends. Then, once we lost the zombies, we stopped here. Joe is still tied up to the cart out back. See, I thought you knew that was my Joe and not just some random zombie I had dog chained to the cart when we met up. How crazy did you think I was?

We’ll need to figure out how to charge the golf cart or how to bring him with us when we need to move again. I’m just not ready to leave him. Also, don’t tell the others any of this I shared with you. It’s none of their business and no need to get them upset with the neighborhood goings on. Like I said, I don’t want to tell no stories.

So, that’s the answer to your question of how I got here. What’s your story then?

The End

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Jay Wilburn lives with his wife and two sons in Conway, South Carolina near the Atlantic coast of the southern United States. He has a Masters Degree in education and he taught public school for sixteen years before becoming a full time writer. He is the author of many short stories including work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5, Zombies More Recent Dead, Shadows Over Mainstreet, and Truth or Dare. He is the author of the Dead Song Legend Dodecology and the music of the five song soundtrack recorded as if by the characters within the world of the novel The Sound May Suffer. He also wrote the novels The Great Interruption and Time Eaters. He is one of the four authors behind the Hellmouth trilogy. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near with Armand Rosamilia. Jay Wilburn is a regular columnist with Dark Moon Digest. He has a Patreon site with many perks for as little as a dollar. You can sign up for a newsletter for key updates and giveaways. Follow his many dark thoughts on Twitter, Instagram, and Periscope as @AmongTheZombies, his Facebook author page, and at JayWilburn.com

Or begin the series with Book 1.

Jay Wilburn

Jay Wilburn has a Masters Degree in Education that goes mostly unused since he quit teaching to write about zombies. Jay writes horror because he tends to find the light by facing down the darkness. His is doing well following a life saving kidney transplant. Jay is the author of Maidens of Zombie Kingdom a young adult fantasy trilogy, Lake Scatter Wood Tales adventure books for elementary and middle school readers, Vampire Christ a trilogy of political and religious satire, and The Dead Song Legend. He cowrote The Enemy Held Near, Yard Full of Bones, and The Hidden Truth with Armand Rosamilia. You can also find Jay's work in Best Horror of the Year volume 5. He is a staff writer with Dark Moon Digest, LitReactor, and the Still Water Bay series with Crystal Lake Publishing.

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