I hate them. In a very real and deeply personal sense, I hate them.

Which gave me a strange sort of cognitive dissonance; they didn’t hate me, nor fear me, nor care for me. I suppose the undead didn’t feel much of anything anymore. Except, of course, for an unfathomable desire to consume.

Me and Ella were among the few that stayed in Fairview when all hell broke loose. The rest sought out refuge up North, at the Army base. Idiots brought the zombies, we called them “Zed”, with ‘em, both as carriers, if they were previously bitten, and stalked as prey as they made their trek. The Military bases were some of the first to fall- from within. I avoided the North, now. More and more there were areas to avoid, like an ever-tightening noose. The rich suburban areas were hit pretty hard, too. The rich homes, they were built for aesthetics, and they looked damn nice, too. But their security relied on law and order- police and private security, alarms and other things that are useless now. The inner cities still have some holdouts here and there. Security that was made for the bad parts of town worked pretty well for Zed, and there seemed to be enough guns to keep the streets pretty well clear. They don’t take to well to scavengers, though, so I stayed away from there, too. (more…)

Realizing what had to be done; Riley placed the tip of the knife on the army man’s temple. She wondered if his brain had been destroyed after whacking him in the head with the pot, but couldn’t take the chance. She’d learned her lesson at the cabin.

She picked up the heavy pot; her heart racing a little for what she was about to do. Relaxing her fingers around the knife’s handle, she readied herself. (more…)

Jenny found herself in a sunlit field of golden yellow dandelions under a clear blue sky. Her knee length dress mirrored the dandelions’ brilliant hue as she frolicked among their buttery petals. She lay back against the cool green grass and let the sun’s heat wash over her; warming her skin and making her smile. Gradually, the sun grew brighter; hotter. All around her dandelions wilted and dropped their petals. Jenny sat up, shielded her eyes from the intensifying sun with her right hand and squinted against the painful light. Her left arm began to burn, and when she looked at it, blisters were bubbling to the surface. The sun, now too bright to look at, poured its heat down on her like molten metal. She cowered under the assault, covering her head futilely with her arms as her flesh began to smoke and burn. Jenny woke with a start and jerked her left arm away from the uncomfortably hot metal. (more…)

Once upon a time – and not so long ago, either – when I was properly, certifiably mad, I almost traipsed, in my lunacy, right past this unlikely sanctuary.

How could I describe this refuge? If you can imagine a powerful subterranean deity angrily punching the earth from below and forcing one hundred acres of passable farmland three metres straight up, then you have an idea of it. How more people haven’t stumbled upon this place baffles me. Perhaps there’s no one left alive to find it. (more…)

Broken urban desert, stale, parched
Dusted and frosted with collapsing automobiles
Skeletal juices crunch and ooze underfoot
All is dead (more…)

Today our repository of zombie fiction turns three. A huge thanks to the authors and illustrators who have made this site what it is. I’m sure our readers share the thrill of excitement when a new story is published to the site – a thrill that we, as editors, get to have a little early. So keep up the amazing work, all of you. As I know Mr. Brooks is fond of saying: Lead them to victory.

-ed.

Jim Bramer, Minister of Special Circumstances, stood and gazed out of the grimy rain-slick window of The Houses of Parliament office that was his home. Casually he picked at the damp peeling paint on the window sill, and dropped the flakes onto the aging, stained carpet. The office was once opulent in the seat of government, now faded and ruined as the city around him. He looked out into the night, and the further he looked west, the more dread snatched at him. He could feel the rising panic in the city below, queues of shabby workers rushing down Abingdon Street towards Westminster Bridge and the Isle of Dogs. They moved together in the vain hope there was still a boat with a friendly Captain. In his office he could hear the murmurs and shouts of the crowd, people shoving and arguing, fear barely concealed as they hurried along. Bramer knew that all the boats were gone, and that Death was coming. He knew this because The Minister had phoned him and told him so. (more…)

Noon, The Next Day, I-35, North of Emporia, Kansas

We tend to drive slowly when we’re traveling with the kids. As they’ve gotten older, traveling has gotten easier, but we still take our time driving. Besides, it wasn’t like we were in a hurry. We stopped for the night in Wichita, just off the Kansas Turnpike. The match had ended at about 2:30 in the afternoon, so we drove for a few hours and pulled into a Holiday Inn to get a good night’s sleep. (more…)

I’m interviewing Malcolm Price, veteran of a US-Army-run concept military unit. There are less than fifty survivors of the original batch of three thousand, making him one of the rarest of interview subjects I have run across. Their designation, “Canaries”, hearkens back to the days of coal miners using small birds in cages as primitive poisonous gas detection systems; if the bird died, the mine was considered “unsafe”. (more…)