IN PROGRESS, WORK

"The first thing we do, we kill all the lawyers."

I looked at Bill. "The Bard, nice. Whatever. What you meant to say was, 'First thing, we kill all the zombies.'"

He looked at me blankly. He opened his case to his .45. Dribble drooped from his lower lip.

***

Man, it'd been quick. Exponential. From a few bleeps about "Cannibals in Sandusky?" to mass chaos. It was exponential. We all learned quick.

***

I'd had this friend Chuck, Charles, since I was seven. He and I grew older and we drifted apart, as friends so-often do. We stopped hanging out when we were, like, 15 or so. He'd started smoking and drinking--at 15!!!--and I still hit the books. We were like grease and water. In the halls we still said hello to each other, but it was low-class teenage bullshit. We'd spaced. I knew it; he knew it. Man....

This is difficult. I hope you--whoever the fuck you are--knows that it was tough to see him that day. After the Alarm-Sec-2009-09.

I do not like zombies. I hate their slack-jawed expressions and I hate the omnipresent fact that they want to kill me and eat my brain.

I'm just not down with that.

Charlie the zombie.

Fuck.

There is no room for error with these fucks. They scratch you, you die an agonizing death. They bite you? You die an agonizing death. They eat you? You're fucked.

Whatever. Charles came after me. It was after all the government's shut-downs and shit. But, yeah, he still was hungry.

He had knocked at my door. He'd still had the modicum of Humanity in his diseased networks.

"Chuck. Not home," I said as I parted the curtains on the door. "Zee-Chuck. Go bite someone else."

He hammered his head in to the door and--goddamn if--his head didn't