Horse Chestnut Avenue was awash with activity; the prim residents were in a state of unbecoming panic, uncharacteristic chaos and pantie-twisting kerfuffle.
The imported German cars were safely harbored under the corrugated armor of the garages, protected from the miniature mines that rained down from the trees. Those bombs born of the soil and the sap, were as damaging as their spiky maritime brethren. Unlike the cars, the residents were vulnerable, to something entirely more terrifying.
Her picket fence was red, not white. Like razor wire; it was a demarcation line, an unwritten don’t mess with me warning sign. Molly approached, tentatively, and rang the doorbell.
“Yes,” Mrs Redmond said, curtly, “what do you want?”
“I’ve come here about Butch,” Molly replied, defensively, “is there anything I can do?”
“I think you and your husband have…done enough,” she growled, her hands placed on her hips like a diva; a look she might have pulled off three decades ago, “now, if you don’t mind, I have to protect my family.”
The door slammed in unmistakable affirmation of a reputation, ruined. The neighborhood echoed with the sound of drills boarding up windows, scuttling ration gathering and hunkering down in the basements. Molly just wanted to kill him. All these years. All that car washing, house-painting, perfect hair, nose-job, implants, anal bleaching, face-filler – all for nothing – ruined in a moment of unhinged rule-breaking.
Butch was never…butch. She wasn’t entirely sure he was straight. He simply tried too hard. She hated the cringing declarations of undying love, like the time he said he’d walk over broken glass for her, once, she made him do it, never again – oh, the mess.
He’d walk his mail round, in his tight-fitting uniform, with a theatrical skip and Tigger-bounce. The Jackson kids, teased him, but it was the dog that was his nemesis.
She hated it when he came home, always the same…
“I freaking hate that dog-” he start, expecting her to ask which one, but she stopped playing that game long ago, he couldn’t even cuss like a real man, “-you know the one…Tyson, the Jackson dog. It’s always out the front rolling around, mutts nutts on show, grinning like a psycho. He took a chunk out of me today. I tell you what, Mols, one day…one day”.
The CCTV footage showed Butch sitting outside the R & D labs, out on the Obama Business Park, opening a secure parcel. It took him an hour. Then the mail van windows sprayed red.
The TV new reported an incident. Social media said he died and was reanimated. Butch, the zombie.
The rumors said he went after Tyson. Then he ran off into the woods, giggling like he was on hippy-crack.
The rumors said he was last seen eating rodents and bats. If social media is to be believed, the animals have started to rise again too.
The Special Service agents and snipers have been tracking him, but why? She sits there, knife in hand…Just wait till he gets home.
via Summer of Super Short Stories Week Ten! | Luminous Creatures Press.
This is the final week and the prompt was incredibly difficult for me (little did I know at the time, another one was coming elsewhere).
It took a very long time. I binned one entire story along the way, then spent ages on this one. I’m not entirely happy with it – we’ll wait and see what happens.
*Update 27/08/14 : I didn’t place with this (there were some outstanding entries). Congrats to the winners. However, it might get another chance. There is a zombie anthology for charity that Flash Champ Karl A. Russell is spreading the word for. Increased word count, so I might revise this and expand it a little. In a strange twist, I had to go out of my way to Americanise (should that be with a ‘z’?) the spelling and even the title – the new submission will immediately discount anything that is not English (UK) – that’ll teach me.
Metropolitan Dreams 