The Zombies

2276 Words5 Pages

Imagine, if you will, a brisk night wind coming fast across a lake carrying a pungent smell, something you can’t quite identify, but is nonetheless familiar enough to send a shiver up your spine. As it hits the trees, they creak out a somber call in the still night air. Or was that groan something more…human? You notice, for the first time, the absence of tires humming on pavement and you wonder if it’s that late, or maybe just a slow night. The soft tapping of your shoes on the sidewalk is the only accompaniment your slow breathing has as you move towards the warmth of your home, holding thoughts of a warm bed in the palm of your hand to keep the chill away. You don’t notice at first, perhaps because the reality of what you’re hearing is too obscene to be real, but there is definitely someone behind you now, just within earshot. But what you hear is not another midnight traveler’s tracing of your footsteps along the sidewalk, it is the distinct noise of a pained gait, as if they were limping and crying out a dull moan to accentuate their plight. You look back to see…nothing. Shrugging it off as a trick of the wind, you forge ahead, close enough now to see your doorstep, but far enough away to lack its reassurance. The wind continues its trickery, seeming to call upon its gusty brethren to echo its increasingly convincing call. You pick up your pace, almost running now, as the trees shout at your passage, calling out for you, pleading with you to stop, if only for a moment, so that they may have a word with you. And what word might that be, you question to yourself as you break into a full sprint. Then, as if in direct response to your thoughts, they all call out in unison, “Brrrraaaaaaaaiiiiinnns…”

By the time you figure out wh...

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...ed encounter of our late night walker, how should they have handled that situation? That’s correct; they should have stayed inside and not been out on the streets in the middle of a zombie apocalypse like an idiot. I’m glad to see that you’ve learned a lesson or two; or at the very least you’ve gone from “A zombie outbreak could never happen and probably wouldn’t even be a big deal even if it did” to “Aaaaaahhhh! Zombies! What a terrifying and startling turn of events that I am now prepared for!” Now then, on a totally unrelated topic, I was out walking the streets last night when this guy runs up to me and tries to bite me! It was really weird; he was covered in blood or something and he smelled like a dead horse, but maybe it was just dirt. He did look bewilderingly homeless, so that could explain it. He was probably just crazy or something. Can you believe that?

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