1

I barely smell the burlap smoke anymore, but I remember that it used to burn my throat and water my eyes. I blow into the tin fume-canister until a little flame leaps up then I slap the top closed and squelch the heat. I want the smoke, not the fire. A thousand or so honeybees swarm around the two hives I’ve placed at the edge of Old Man Orchard. I should camouflage them or put them a little deeper into the woods, but the big white boxes need sunlight if I want the bees to survive the long winters, so it’s a tradeoff I guess. (more…)

It gets cold in January.  Cold and windy.  On this particular night, it wasn’t a steady wind like you usually got, but gusty.  Just when you thought it had backed off, it blasted you.  This led to more frigid air finding its way into coats, under hats, up nostrils.

And Mikey had another two hours on watch.  He hated being up in the middle of the night, and the cold was just the cherry on top of the whole crap sundae. (more…)

Please see Verse 1 of The Minister

The Minster: Verse 2

Against the gentle whump, whump, whump, of the helicopter blades, Paul Jollie listened to the last thirty seconds of the mp3 over and over again. He’d put the earpieces of his ipod underneath the bulky headphones to try and drown out the noise of the ancient Huey he was now sat in. He was studying the photographs of the living room of the old croft where the attack had happened. He tried to visualise the knock at the door, the surprise of the occupants, that final desperate struggle and what had happened after the tape stopped, after the bloody violence ended. He had listened to the MP3 over and over again, studying to every nuance of Joe Wyndhams voice as he described the Minister and that final line, the voice of the Minister himself; that drawn out Scottish brogue dripping with menace. No matter how many times he listened, he couldn’t gather any further information from it and yet every time he listened to the recording the hairs on the back of his neck stood to attention. (more…)

Orange County, California, USA

[ I look down on the city of LA, from my perch on a balcony in the hills above the city. The sounds of reconstruction and clean up still echo even 10 years after the war. I'm waiting for the owner of this large, walled in compoud. It is definately a post war consturction. Part House, part shooting range, part bunker and storage facility. It's owner, a very successful business man, gives lessons in shooting, and most importantly, the art of killing the undead. I'm here to get his story of what had happened when the day came, when the dead walked the Earth. ] (more…)

The man lit his match on the cement guardrail along the edge of the building. He touched the flame to the tip of his cigarette, and then flicked the match off the roof. Cigarettes had become a rare sight, and Jack suspected that the man had killed someone to get that pack.

He was a big man, the bulk of his weight centered in his gut. A thick, brown beard covered his face. He wore a flannel shirt, torn in several places, and a pair of dirty, faded jeans. Chubby fingers plucked the cigarette out of his mouth, which was curled into a smile as he stared at the roof across the street from him. On the ground Jack made note of the shotgun leaning against the guardrail, as well as the pistol tucked away in the man’s pants. (more…)

I wondered if this whole thing should become one of those ads in a gun magazine. You know, the kind you’d see next to the monster truck magazines at check out lanes all over the south. A big picture of the latest word in pistols, shotguns, or rifles, full of garish ads for laser sights, gas masks, and calendars of half naked women cradling fully automatic weapons. Yeah, I could see it now. “The day the world ended, and I all had to count on was my trusty Smith & Wesson.” That would be printed across the top of the page in bold letters. Below it would be a picture of a ragged but defiant survivor, calmly cradling the zenith of firearms technology. (more…)

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…)

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

I often think back to when everything was so complex, and I don’t know whether I should burst into tears, or smile solely because I managed to live through the war. When Zack started showing up in Maryland after the refugees made their way into the States, from Africa and China, I knew we were fucked from the beginning. I remember sitting around the tube watching CNN with Paul, my best friend, and this was when the outbreak was still west of the Rockies. Still focusing on the television he blankly muttered out, “Militia. We have to join a militia, it’s the only way we beat this thing.” (more…)