You bring the fire axe down on the padlock of the rolling door as hard as you can. You strike the body of the lock more than the shank, and the door makes a loud, booming rattle. You look around guiltily but the area is mostly dark warehouses and empty buildings awaiting an urban renewal that might never come.

You take a look at the lock, covering your flashlight with your fingers so that one thin beam stabs out. You have done little damage. You unsling your rifle and take off your vest. You take an unhampered swing. BOOM RATTLE says the door again. Inspecting, you see a deep mark in the shank. Progress. BOOM RATTLE, BOOM RATTLE. You bring down the axe again, hands on the very end of the handle and you hear the snap of the lock giving way. You look at your axe and see it has a number of notches along the blade.

You squat and try to twist the lock free. Another peek with the flashlight shows that you have bent the hasp and you can’t unhook the lock. You look at the other two rolling doors. It would take too long and would be too loud. You look at the fire axe. The other end of the head comes to a point. You insert the pick into the lock and lever it off, the latch and staple ripping away entirely.

“Finally,” you mutter. You reach down and raise the door triumphantly.

“Maaail…” moan a dozen Postal employee zombies right on the other side of the door, drawn by the noise you made. You freeze for just a second. Zombies are real! you think and then Oh, shit! and then the first one is biting you.

“Gurk,” you manage as it chews on your windpipe. Another fastens onto your arm and one with no legs clamps down on your ankle.

This postal site was shut down because of bioterrorism, you recall. Anthrax letters. Anthrax. ANTHRAX ZOMBIES!

Two more pile on and drag you to the ground. You see your rifle through a forest of dead legs. Too far. Too fucking far. Your vest is closer. The zombies pouring out of the warehouse are stumbling off the loading dock. The one on your arm tears away a piece of your flesh. The legless one seems to have no teeth, so just feel a rotted gumming along your shin.

MOVE! your mind screams. MOVE! You kick the legless one away and put your elbow into the one on your arm. There is a wet crunch as its sternum gives way. Close, very close, you feel your arm reaching for the vest slide along the dock on a film of your blood.

“Maaail…” the rest of them on the dock are moaning when they notice you are not currently being eaten. They shuffle toward you.

You snag the vest and drag it toward you. A zombie trying to kneel to bite at your midsection falls across you. You pat the vest to find the phone. The throatbiter attacks from the opposite side, still after your Adam’s apple.

Phone! you scream at yourself. Find the pocket, no leverage to tear the Velcro. You grab the zombie coming for your neck by the top of his protruding sternum and push him away from you. Your other hand drags the vest closer and you pull out the satphone. You bring it to your face and it autodials the only number it can call.

“Airstrike requested?” a clipped military voice demands.

“Huk,” you manage through your gnawed larynx.

“Airstrike requested? I must have verbal confirmation.”

You croak like a frog. A zombie begins to chew your forearm.

“Abteak,” you say and then scream hoarsely.

“I need you to speak clearly. This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.”

More zombies on your legs now. A couple of them are clawing at your stomach, intent on intestines. Like ripe fruit, your abdomen bursts open.

—–

The zombie infestation spreads through suburban Connecticut and then into the outskirts of Washington D.C. President Trump addresses the nation after the chaos in Anacostia and Morgan Hunt results in a huge number of hipsters being added to the moaning army of the dead. After the speech, 78% of registered Democratic voters believe the zombie outbreak is a hoax design to allow Trump to postpone the election.

The CDC recommends wearing a mask while being eaten by zombies and to maintain at least a 12-foot distance from zombies at all times. Trump calls in the military and the zombie hoard threatening Capitol Hill is put down easily. Trump loses the election by a wide margin when zombies attack polling places and the DNC mail-in ballot plot succeeds.

In the wake of the election, Zanon claims that the zombies are really sex interns of the GOP leaders infected with a super-STD and that Biden was elected on a secret pro-grope agenda to smoke them out.

Outrage that the “formerly alive” are being killed rather than rehabilitated through restorative justice and jobs programs creates the Zombie Lives Matter movement. A rotting hand making a peace sign becomes the symbol of the social justice campaign. ZML protests quickly turn violent when the token zombies brought along to march attack their allies. In retaliation, ZML begins to firebomb funeral homes.

Transdeath activists claim that they always felt dead inside and begin to deliberately infect themselves with gangrene so they can “unlive their authentic deaths.” Twitter begins to suspend all accounts that offer practical tips on how to kill zombies and institutes a green checkmark for living allies of the undead. “Zombophobe” is added to the Webster’s dictionary. Zombies are added to the cast of all TV shows and Disney movies, with often fatal results.

The “Zombie Rights Are Formerly Human Rights” bill passes easily through a technically braindead House but is killed in the Senate. Protests over the phrase “killed in the Senate” spark riots in dozens of cities. The Seattle/Portland corridor is declared the Differently Alive Protection Zone. The DAPZ is denuded of human life in under three weeks.

Ten years after your failure, you can’t complain if your child’s Kindergarten teacher is a zombie, or if a zombie barista drops of gobbet of steamed arm meat in your latte. Using deodorant is a microaggression. Not letting a zombie bite you is considered impolite and evidence that you don’t see dead people as real people. Cosmopolitan Magazine offers articles about the “Top 10 Tips and Tricks for Sex After Death” and Jezebel posts about “the best ways to retrieve a rotting penis from your front hole.” Wearing a Make America Alive Again hat marks you out as a bigot.

 

THE END

 

(START OVER?)