A Temporary Solution

The last glimmer of sunset showed them their doom. The main horde had finally caught up, and the ancient mansion wouldn't last an hour against a determined zombie assault.

"Please," Trey said, holding out the shotgun, "I want a clean death."

"Wait!" Gertie pointed out the window.

In the twilight, a shadowy figure darted with blinding speed among the zombies. Heads exploded, limbs fell off, and in an impossibly short time, the undead assault was blunted.

"Thank you!" Gertie called to their rescuer.

He turned. "You may thank me properly. Later." He smiled, bone-pale, his fangs flashing in the darkness.

Brains

Finch pushed back his hat. "Naw, we got this. C'mon, Buford. Show 'em your stuff."

Buford, his gray skin dry and sun-bleached, shambled out. He wore a ten-gallon hat atop the shreds of scalp on his skull.

Finch clapped his hands. "What does a donkey do, Buford?"

"Brrraaays."

"And how do you steer a horse?"

"Rrrreeiins."

Finch turned to the others with a wide grin. "Somethin' else, ain't he?"

Tucker and Will glanced at each other. Tucker spat. "Still thicker'n a shit sandwich."

Finch frowned. "Hey, Buford. What is it these two ain't got more'n a teaspoonful of between 'em?"

Dead on the Inside

"What of the living dead?" Markham sat back and sipped his glass of wine.

Rotheske did not move, save to follow Markham's hand. "The dead are just like the living. They can move about. They can speak as fluently as they like. They can eat and drink, if they wish. The sole difference is that they are dead; an internal and private affair."

Markham's lips twisted. "Then what separates us from them? You make it sound as though there's no telling!"

He paused, then, his gaze fixed on the buzzing fly that had just landed on Rotheske's unblinking eye.

None of the Above

Snake was down on his luck. He was not in a mood to get fancy, so when he and his gun stepped out before the figure in the long coat, he stuck with the classics.

“Your money or your life!” Snake snarled.

“Uh…”

“This isn’t a hard choice, fella. Give me your money or I take your life.”

“Well, that’s really the problem. I don’t have either one.”

Snake groaned and threw his pistol on the ground. “God-damned Multi-Vital America Act. You zombies need to get back to where you came from.”

The dead man shrugged. “We thought we were.”

Public Service Work is Often Thankless

The truck rattled to a halt at the stoplight. "City Special Services," read the sign on the door.

The windows were opaque, but the driver's side was cracked, and a hairy, scar-knuckled hand tipped a bit of ash off a cigarette and onto the street. The back was a mesh cage. Inside, sets of shackles clattered against each other under the vibrations of the engine. The floor was speckled with the rusty marks of old blood. On the back of the cab, a clear red hand-print stood out against the white paint.

The light turned green. The truck rumbled away.

Prompt: Zombie Paratrooper

Inspired by a prompt from Aidan Fritz.

---

“Let’s get underway,” said Major General Lusin. OrCAs interpreted the subtle inflections of Lusin’s voice, registered the command, and automatically began launch procedures. The capsules spiraled out from the containment unit, a dark cube surrounded now by a cloud of glowing dots as the reflective sails caught the light. The cloud elongated, attenuated, stretching down to the planet’s surface.

“Troops launched,” OrCAs announced.

“Fucking robots,” Lusin muttered.

“Sir,” OrCAs said, “we have no mechanized troops. Our corps is composed primarily of NHST-101; ninety-six percent human tissue.”

“Goddamned zombies, then,” said Lusin. He slurped his soy-caff angrily.

“As you wish, sir.”

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Their Stock is Down, but They Simply Refuse to Lay Down and Die

Edwards gestured at the screen with his laser pointer. “Rrruhhn,” he said.

“Mmrrrhhhnnrrr,” the room murmured in agreement, heads nodding. Jacobson’s lower jaw fell off, but he didn’t notice.

“Sir, that plan will end up in the red, too. It’s just shifting the day of reckoning a few years,” Thomason said, with the air of a man who knows he is tilting at a windmill.

“Nuurrhhhrrnn,” said Edwards.

Thomason shook his head as everyone shuffled out of the meeting room. “Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one with a functioning brain,” he said.

“Mmmrrraaains?” said Jacobson, perking up slightly.