I have a new story up at Flash Fiction World called, “A Place Like This.”  Check it out:  http://www.flash-fiction-world.com/a-place-like-this.html.

Hope you enjoy!

Angie

Could be dangerous.

We don’t know what we’ll face when we get out there.  You know that, don’t you?

Well, all right, then.  Let’s suit up.

No, now, I told you.  You gotta wear something with sleeves, boy, something made of heavy fabric.

Lessens their chances of sinkin’ their teeth into you.

And tie them shoes in double knots, boy.  Don’t be a fool.  We don’t want ’em coming loose if we get chased.

Oh, yeah.

One last thing.

Say your goodbyes now, and don’t hold nothin’  back.

This might be the very last time you ever see these people.

That only means one thing,

One of us has to go find some.

Can’t have a ship crashing up on shore, if there’s still a live ship’s crew left anywhere in the world.  If they’re alive and they crash here, they’ll draw every goddamned zombie from here to Humboldt County down upon us. 

Yeah.

Including the elk.

We’d be sitting ducks then, wouldn’t we?

Nothing but zombie chowder.

Well, I ain’t sittin’ still for that.

Boy, go get my shotgun.

And we were, if only for ourselves.

But the world’s a savage place, and even the staunchest believer must realize by now there wasn’t gonna be no divine intervention.  There ain’t no right or wrong no more, and man’s at the bottom of the food chain.

Hell, there ain’t even the devil to contend with.

Just them amoral shitbags.

Equal opportunity at its finest.

You think them bastards care who they eat?  If they recognize you as human, by whatever mechanism they use, you’re lunch.

It’s a sad fact, and time everybody left recognized it.

I remembered a pamphlet them church guys were giving out at the very first shelter I found, back when it still seemed like we might have a chance.  Now I’ve never been much for religion, so I just sort of scanned it.

What it said was, “God is kind and merciful.”

What it looked like it said was, “God is kind of merciless.”

Been nearer to the truth to just stick with that.

For all you believers out there.

I seen ‘em fall.

They walk out on the pier or they walk out on the jetty or just plain walk out on the sand, but either way, they’re too dumb to keep from getting swept away by the tide.

Where they went or if they lasted, I can’t tell you.

For all I know, they might all be sitting at the bottom of the ocean, their filled-up lungs holding them down.

They might be in a fish’s belly.

Hell, I don’t know.

All I know is, I’m glad when it happens.

All I know is, that’s one less stinking rot-bag we gotta fight.