by Kenny Van Dyke Jr.

Sorry folks, the good ‘ol days are gone. There may be happy times and fond memories ahead, but you will never be able to truly relax. Even if it’s been twenty years since you last saw one, the zombies could be (and probably are), still out there somewhere. Life behind walls will always be a given, and the rebuild limited to self-imposed captivity No matter how posh, no matter how far your zombie proof walls extend toward the horizon, the sunshine will never be as bright, or the air as sweet as when you’re out in the open world; the open, dangerous world.

There will be open air settlements eventually, but if you choose to live in one, be prepared to be on edge constantly; you’ll never know if there’s an attack coming, regardless of when the last one came. There will be watch duty from now to the end of time if you live outside of one of the fortified cities, and the risk of bandits and raiders will be a day to day concern.

Depending on how many survive (or how long it takes for the lawlessness to die down), the rebuild might take decades to materialize; it could be months or years.

All I know for sure is that despite their differences, most people are at least neutral at their core, if not leaning towards good already. Give them some enemy as common as cold-blooded, rotten, half-eaten hordes of zombies, and most folks will come together to fight the common foe. Looting will eventually give way to collective gathering and bartering between local compounds; it will be like communism without central planning, propaganda, or the gulag!

With most people and zombies dead for good, survivors will quickly find that even without the fires of industry fueling the production of goods, there will be no shortage of “stuff’. Everything from H.A.M radios to hydraulic log splitters will eventually find their way to population centers and wind up in the hands of any of survivors who know how to use them or fix them. Solar cells will be plucked from street signs and daisy-chained together to form a makeshift power grid somewhere. Somewhere else the right group of people will figure out how to get the sewer system running again, and word will spread. Soon trade routes and messengers will emerge; bringing news, sharing developments, and eventually drawing people together.

After a generation or two, life will be considered “normal” again. People will have fixed old VCR’s, figured out what day and month and year it is again, and will still be watching “It’s A Wonderful Life” on December 24th. People will still be having petty squabbles, and the local governments will be capable of both virtue and corruption. In this future, as now, it will be up to the people themselves to be the ultimate arbiters of their freedom and security. So long as we can remember what the zombies did, we as a species, will rebuild from this; be it sooner, or be it later.

To buy the book visit: www.holycrapitszombies.com or buy it on Amazon https://amzn.to/2v6EL8p

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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