#also I guess it implies that the zombies are a kind of virulent coccidiosis
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ironclawallosaur · 3 months ago
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"Hey, hey!" I yelled from inside my unassailable fortress. Once it had been a suburban shed, but I'd cut and welded pieces of an abandoned semi and downed signposts to the weakpoints, wrapped concertina-wire around the whole thing, and built it into a structure of unassailable might, with firing-holes and even a spot for boiling oil. Not that it did me much good any more.
Outside, the two girls paused. One was wearing a teal hoodie, the other a chunky earthtone sweater.
"Oh, hey Earl!" Sweater called. "Thank you for your service!"
I growled aloud. I knew I was a minor celebrity—hell, I was the reason this particular neighborhood was free!
Sure, I didn't know the CDC would manage to hack together a vaccine within a couple of years, that a government that could rarely keep the roads intact would manage to create safezones that kept the majority of America's population from succumbing, that our porous borders would manage to slam shut while we were the only ones affected, much less that Corid of all substances would effect a cure on all but the most advanced cases... but I'd been publicly thanked for my part in safeguarding humanity, even in the absurd confines of depopulate suburbia. President Donaldson had shaken my hand and everything.
No, I was good on the fame front.
"I'm not fishing for complements!" I barked at her. "I want to make a deal!" Sweater looked vaguely irritated, but Hoodie seemed intrigued.
It wasn't like I couldn't go back—my wife had thankfully been away in one of the Green Zones during the initial outbreak, and we'd long since cleaned the house out from the zombie rats and the flesh flies that had accompanied the hordes. I spent four nights a week in our house, most of them curled up next to her and thankful for every moment.
It was just... when it came to putting that spot in our lives behind us, she liked to roleplay endless scenarios of being stuck at the airport with others who'd been caught in the Green Zones similarly. No, not that kind of roleplay—get your mind out of the gutter—but the sort of scenario where she'd travel somewhere in the States or abroad only to hear again "The United States is under quarantine. Please remain calm and move to the nearest designated Green Zone officer." and how, this time, she would respond.
Me, however? I have my "man cave" shed full of all the supplies I thought I'd need for the end of the world, and a full character that had evolved through 46 months of bizarre interactions with my fellow left-behind survivors.
And the supplies... well, they needed to be downsized.
"I wanted to ask ya if ya knew anyone who wanted 100 cases of MREs." I clarified.
Sweater pulled a face, but Hoodie laughed. "Ah, sure thing Earl, my brother's all trying to get prepared for when the Vaxx turns people into More and Worse zombies! I'll give you his digits."
I looked around at the pallets and pallets worth of MREs, 40 years' supply of ready-to-eat "food".
In the few years the outbreak had lasted, I'd learned a lot of valuable things. The importance of sticking together and listening. That willpower could overcome an awful lot. That most domestic animals were immune to the shambling hordes unless they too became zombies. That even a stupid little neighborhood in southern Michigan could be a hill worth dying on.
But the very most important lesson was that MREs sucked.
I grimaced, and looked back out the firing-hole. "Think he might want a few more than that?"
When the zombie apocalypse came, you were prepared. What you weren’t prepared for was how quickly it ended.
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