Only the Light We Make

by James Dean

  It took a few minutes, but I was eventually able to psych myself up enough to start walking down the road.

  Everything seemed so solid and real. I remember how the leaves on the trees were changing colors and starting to fall, and how there were squirrels EVERYWHERE. I remember walking past the cemetery (not sure why I was surprised by that) and wondering if they’d become an obsolete custom. Like, all I've seen anyone do since June of last year was burn dead bodies. I still can't think of a single time I'd seen a body buried since That Day. Maybe, if the world can keep spinning long enough, we'll start using cemeteries again. Or, maybe we'll stop using cemeteries entirely, and then we'll have to explain to our grandchildren why the roads have stupid names.

  I remember when I saw their house.

  Just before the end of the road, the only house that had clean windows. Amateur mistake. Since the windows were clean, I knew I was being watched. That shudder of motion at the edges of the window, maybe a rippling curtain, so you know that there was someone looking, but they tried to hide too fast and gave themselves away. It was cute, really. Like playing hide and seek, except that I never hide, which makes me the best seeker.

  I tried to figure out the best way to introduce myself, but I didn't want to stop and stand in their front yard like an idiot, so I kept walking. At one point I realized I had walked right up to their front door. So I figured, fuck it, and I knocked.

  *****

  After all the buildup, I was a little disappointed. She looked normal. Brownish-blonde hair, brown eyes, maybe five and a half feet tall, decent figure, a little on the thin side, but that’s pretty much the norm these days. Not that I’m one to talk. I’m only 5’ 8”, and I probably weight something like 120 or 130 pounds (mostly muscle, thanks to this new zombie apocalypse workout program). But saying that a survivor looks “athletic” is kind of redundant.

  I’d comment on her clothes, but wearing a nice outfit is pretty much impossible these days. I hadn’t done laundry since a few days before That Day. When what I was wearing got too dirty I'd just forage up some clean clothes that mostly fit and called it good. I’m fairly sure the practice has become standard procedure for everyone else I’ve seen lately. Jeans and running shoes, or jeans and hiking boots, and usually something with long sleeves on top. Colors and styles are a thing of the past, and I was grateful for it. It turns out that the end of the world is the true equalizer when it comes to women’s fashion.

  Finding bras has become a real hassle though. It wasn’t easy to begin with, and now it is damned near impossible to find one with a good fit.

  I’m rambling.

  I don’t know how long we stood there, staring at each other. I broke first.

  “Liz?” My voice came out as a sort of croak. I realized that--beyond mumbling to myself like a crazy cat lady--I hadn’t spoken out loud in months. Excellent first impression.

  “Are you--” she hesitated, but her voice was amazing. In two words I was already impressed. I later learned that she used to work as a voice actress, doing cartoons and foreign film dubbing. Unfortunately not a useful skill when combating the undead. “Are you Barbie?” she finally asked.

  “That fucking cock biter.” I’m super happy that the first sentence I spoke to her was 50% swearing. Well, maybe only 25%. Is 'cock' a swear word? Probably is.

  "Ummm…" Turns out she is just as eloquent as I am.

  "Wait." I held up a hand and took a drink of water. After I'd cleared my throat a few times I was able to sound almost like a living human. "Call me Barbara, or Barb, okay?" I tried to sound nice, but I'm sure I came off sounding like a moody bitch. "But please don't call me Barbie."

  "Oh, of course." She looked kind of uncomfortable for a moment, but then she smiled. "Would you like to come inside? I just made some bread."

  Long story short: We ate the fuck out of that bread.

  Slightly longer story: She's taking care of these two kids, Emmet (boy) and Riley (girl). They're twins, but they only look kinda-sorta alike. It was one of those two eggs got released at the same time type of twins, so they only looked as similar as any other two siblings would, except that they were the same age. They were thirteen, by the way. So, that was something else. Teenagers are weird and awkward.

  They weren't her kids, thank God. I mean, she was only twenty-seven. She had met Mark, well… they met in very unusual, horrible circumstances. I'm not going to go into all of the details, but she knows first-hand why single survivor women stay the hell away from other people. The kids were in the same place she was, and Mark rescued them all. I learned a lot about what had been happening with my brother before he died, and it was fairly impressive.

  In the middle of June, last year, everything went to shit. Liz joined/was picked up by this group of people who she thought she could trust. They were going to band together, keep each other safe, and wait it out. But they thought they'd only have to wait a few weeks, maybe a few months at the most. Then it drug on into late fall/early winter, and they began to realize that this was it. Forever.

  Some people don't care about right and wrong, good and evil. Some people are only doing the right thing because they think they have to. And when nobody is around to make them behave, they stop pretending. The zombies are monsters, but they're the good kind. Zombies are always bad, and they are all equally bad, all of the time. But people who've given up on being good, those are the bad kind of monsters. Liz was stuck in a group of with some really bad people.

  One of the good ones got away though, and he somehow managed to meet Mark.

  Liz wasn't able to see most of what happened, because they kept her locked up. She'd already tried to run away a couple times, and I guess they were tired of chasing her. She told me that there was a lot of noise, guns, fighting, fire, etc. Basically pure chaos. Some of the other women she was locked up with were convinced that Armageddon was finally happening. Judgment with a capitol J.

  But it was just Mark.

  Nobody saw exactly how he did it, and when they asked him later all he'd say was that angels were fighting beside him. He killed eighteen men in less than 30 minutes, and he set everyone free.

  So Liz and the kids stuck with him. They wandered around for a while, but they eventually found this house, out in the middle of nowhere. Mark went foraging in the area and got a huge pile of food and stuff, and they've been doing okay since then. They were together in this house until the middle of summer this year, about two months before I showed up.

  One day Mark went out to look around, as was his habit. He would spend a day walking around the area, cracking zombie heads and keeping an eye out for bad guys, maybe see if there was anything worth foraging. But one day he didn't come back. Liz doesn't know what happened, and he didn't tell me, so I guess it'll remain a mystery.

  Liz was crying by the end of the story, and the twins were sitting there quietly. I'm not sure if they'd ever heard the whole thing, and I could tell it was hitting them hard. I'll admit it, I was getting a little moist in the eyes as well.

  They lived together for about nine months, in love for most of it, and they never had sex. They never kissed. They never held hands. Liz doesn't do well with physical contact, and I couldn't blame her, not after what she lived through. And Mark is a good guy, who must have really loved her. So that was what it was.

  I'd been in the house with them for about three weeks when I found this old typewriter. There were even some ink ribbons that weren't all dried out. Two nights ago Liz had a dream. She said Mark told her that in the spring time, we should head east. There are some people we're supposed to meet, somewhere on the east coast.

  If you're reading this, welcome to our home. If you get hungry, just walk south-west for about two miles, until you see the big house.

  I hope you like fish eggs.

  ABOUT ADAM CARPENTER

  Adam was born in Arizona, to a family of average merit. It was quickly discovered that he was far superior to his peers. His vast, staggering intellect drove him
to create, so he became a DM. His new passion for D&D proved adequate for his needs, and his mediocre employment afford him the extra time he needs to pursue his writing. He currently lives in Northern Iowa with his wife and children, and their horrible beast of a dog. Adam's greatness is only surpassed by his generosity and humility.

  Family

  Dave Lund

  Snot dripped from his nose, mixing with the tears in his mustache and beard. He screamed in rage at it all, his fingers flexing around the pistol in his right hand.

  “What the fuck did I do to deserve this, I thought you protected your flock, you were never real!” No one was left to hear his broken yelling, collapsed on the floor, on his knees, his left hand felt for the square glass bottle. The whiskey was gone, consumed in grief, finished in anger; Cameron threw the empty bottle against the cross above the fireplace, which exploded in a shower of broken shards on the brick.

  Three days was all it took for his life to crumble, for the entire world to fall apart. What started as wild rumors and stories on social media had collapsed into complete chaos, and darkness consumed society. Like the shining light at the end of the tunnel was extinguished for the entire human race. If aliens ever found this planet and their anthropologists studied the human condition they might describe this as an extinction level event, but for Cameron the story wasn’t some dry academic drivel, no the story was the one of his family, his reason for waking up each morning were in their bedrooms alone. The living room felt cold and dark, a small fire smoldered and glowed in the fireplace. Two white propane bottles sat next to the table, a small collection of red gas cans were next to that.

  “Be Prepared”, the certificate with the red, white and blue ribbon and eagle embossed upon it mocked him from the far wall. With success came failure, but never had failure been experienced so fully.

  “Fuck!”

  Cameron tapped the pistol’s slide against the side of his head. Suddenly he stood; this wasn’t how it was supposed to be. He couldn’t do what he needed to do, what he had to do, what he was required to do. The task was too hard, his emotional stability long stripped of his humanity, and normal thought was replaced solely by the hot consuming pain of lives wasted. No escape, no golden parachute of retirement to another career, this failure dripped the putrid blood of the dead.

  As he walked down the hallway his mind flashed with the snapshots of his life. The high points, the low points, the good and the bad, but all of it was missed, his heart ached for the chance to live a thousand years of his worst day before this.

  Three days ago Cameron sat in his home office, the digital workspace spread across multiple monitors organized in a way that could be described as OCD mixed with insanity. The method in the madness made sense to him, browser windows, music, compilers, windows full of the code he banged out. Elbow deep in a database design for a new online venture, the hours that he had to put in were complete crap, way more than forty a week, but he worked from home and would practically work from anywhere he could sniff out an internet connection. Instead of meetings he had family time, trips and adventures with his wife and daughters. Happy times, planning for a long future of the usual family goals, but now those memories faded and those dreams felt like a lifetime ago. Like Picard waking up on the bridge after an imaginary life on another world, Cameron didn’t have an ancient flute given to him for his experience of a previous and now foreign life, all he had were photographs that now hurt too bad to focus on.

  His youngest daughter came home from school early, reports of a madness sweeping through the city and through the school, what was probably a homeless man had attacked her at the bus stop and bit her on the arm. The emergency room was complete madness; the cops ran them off sealing the hospital from the inside. They made it to the outside in enough time to see someone get killed in the parking lot by some lunatic with a shotgun. Shaken, Cameron drove his daughter home running every red light they came to. The trending social media topics all revolved around what people were calling zombies, which seemed like a kooky conspiracy theory of too many middle aged man-children living in their mom’s basement. The CDC seemed to be the only ones who gave a straight story, the talking heads on TV were calm and aloof, unwilling to call this what it really turned out to be. His daughter died the next morning before Cameron could call the family doctor. It wouldn’t have mattered anyways, all the phone networks were busy, and Cameron couldn’t so much as send a text. The Internet was becoming spotty; all Cameron knew is that he wasn’t alone in losing a child to the new crisis. The next few hours were a blur; his daughter’s dead body sat up and attacked his grieving wife and his other daughter. Now, each of them were tied to their beds, each of them were dead, their teeth gnashed in mindless aggression, they pulled against the restraints and blood still trickled down Cameron’s forearm where his wife had got a piece of flesh in her teeth.

  His end was near, but first he owed his two daughters peace, and his wife deserved the chance to be free from the otherworldly hell they all now lived. He had to save his family from the damnation of the risen dead. Slowly Cameron pushed the door open to his oldest daughter’s room. Posters on the wall and gymnastics trophies on the dresser, team photos stared back unblinkingly, moments of a happier life stolen away. Life isn’t fair but this cruelty held no bounds.

  Writhing against the rope, his daughter snapped and lurched towards him.

  “Sh-sh-sh...Be still, this is -- I love you -- I’m sorry.” Cameron couldn’t talk, his voice failing as the pistol muzzle pressed against his daughter’s forehead, a moment passed, he squeezed the trigger and the girl’s body went limp, still. Cameron gently stroked her hair, gingerly kissed her cheek and closed her cold milky eyes for the last time.

  For all the anger and the drunken grief, an eerie calm washed over him with that first act of love. His youngest daughter was next, his little girl just seven years old. With his daughters released from a life after death, Cameron went to the master bedroom.

  His wife, his bride, his best friend writhed against the ropes and restraints. The well of tears from before empty and dry, only pain remained. Cameron shot his wife, closed her eyes and lay on the bed next to her bloodied body, the dark bite marks still visible on her arms. He grasped her hand in his; intertwining their fingers he kissed the back of her hand and closed his eyes for a moment. A rapid flash of snapshots filtered through his mind, the day they met, their first date, their wedding day, the day their daughters were born, all the happy times. Relieved at finding the end, the end of the pain, the end of this sadness, release from this nightmare, a smile crept across Cameron’s face as his lips sealed around the end of his pistol’s muzzle.

  ABOUT DAVE LUND

  Author Dave Lund is from central Texas, is a former Texas “motor-cop" and skydiver.

  Dave Lund's Winchester Undead series combine the zombie apocalypse with practical tactical skills, prepper knowledge, conspiracy theories, intrigue, secret government agencies and characters that quickly pull you into the story. Accuracy in detail defines the background of the Winchester Undead series, with many of the themes, objects, weapons, and tactics used in the Winchester Undead series are based on the author's experience in survival camping, prepping, law enforcement, and training. Many of the locations visited by the characters in the series are real, although often artistically changed to fit the needs of the characters and plot. The themes, objects, weapons, and tactics used in the Winchester Undead series are based on the author’s experience in prepping, law enforcement, and training.

  The Winchester Undead blog (www.talesofadventure.com) houses all things WU, including behind the scenes insight, photos of the locations use, descriptions and videos of some of the prepper techniques and skills as well as tactical skills and demonstrations, www.winchesterundead.com. To see the best of special content, including excerpts from upcoming Winchester Undead titles; sign up for the VIP Winchester Undead Newsletter while visiting the Winchester Undead website.

  We Cease to Exist


  Jeremy Flagg

  Judith froze as shattered glass cut through the silence like a chaotic wind chime. Muscles tensed from the sound, a sharp disturbance louder than anything she heard in days. The momentary excitement passed and she dropped the hammer. Reaching into the display case, her fingers--covered in leather--wrapped around a scabbard. Pulling the saber from its clear plastic stand, she came to terms with a sudden realization; she was going to die, but not before she killed her ex-girlfriend.

  *****

  Seven days ago, an announcement from the CDC sent the world into madness.

  "Mass General Hospital is reporting a new strain of flu with a profoundly short incubation period. Symptoms include confusion, flushed skin tones, and irritability. If a loved one experiences these, please seek immediate medical help." The message crackled through the stereo speakers on repeat now. It started announcing the message forty-eight hours ago, now it broadcasted over the emergency alert system.

  With classes cancelled, Judith decided she needed the opportunity to work on on a painting for her mixed media class. The School of the Museum of Fine Arts supplied her small ten by ten studio space. Unlike her classmates, her cubicle didn't contain personal touches, painted walls, or knickknacks from home. On one wall, sitting at eye height, a large mirror hung in isolation amongst the white while in front of her, her current work in progress.

  Judith's overalls stood as a testament to her hours of labor. The blue denim hid behind layers of paint and charcoal. Small holes appeared from splashes of turpentine. She stared at the painting with indifference, studying the distorted facsimile of her face. The look of terror in her eyes and the black hand reaching from the shadow grasping her naked breast while the other choked her left her feeling hollow.