Thursday, November 21, 2013

Love and Blandness in the Time of Zombies


So there's this amazingly unassuming fella, let's call him Kevin. He's as mild-mannered as they come, so meek that people sometimes forget he's even in the room. He doesn't speak up or draw attention to himself and to just about everybody he's a non-entity. In fact, he's SO bland that when the Zombie Apocalypse happens, even the zombies don't pay any attention to him. A horde of undead come shambling and moaning, and all of them go for the person cowering next to Kevin and completely ignore our wallflower hero.

This happens a few times before Kevin finally learns that he is safe in this new world being over-run by living corpses. He can walk right through a crowd of them and they don't even raise their heads. They are simply unaware of his presence. Despite his loneliness, Kevin realizes he's lucky; he can come and go as he pleases, hunting for food and supplies, while everyone else dies off one by one.

This goes on for about a year, and then one day Kevin is out ferreting for medicine when he stumbles across another survivor-- a beautiful young woman, all alone, and his heart bursts with an alien emotion. He has fallen in love, instantly...

...and in that instant, the zombies become aware of him, finally. The intensity of his feelings for this woman (let's call her Alice) is such that Kevin is suddenly a fully-formed human, and therefore FOOD. The zombies attack, and Kevin and Alice barely escape to the sanctuary of her fortified apartment.

Alice falls in love with Kevin, and for a year the two of them make a life together there in the apartment. Kevin steals out weekly to hunt for supplies, and it's different now-- he's taking his life into his own hands every time, because he's no longer the unassuming little man no one notices. The zombies go after him as fervently as they would anyone else.

But it's all worth it to Kevin, because for the first time in his life, he's in love.

For a while.

Toward the end of the year, the relationship starts to go sour. They argue. They grow bored. Kevin starts getting restless. And eventually, he realizes he's not in love with Alice anymore. He doesn't fully realize until he goes out one day and finds that, once again, the zombies don't notice him. It's a sobering moment for Kevin.

He returns to the apartment and tells Alice that he is moving on. She is distraught. She still loves him. But his mind is made up. He packs his gear and heads out, with Alice on his heels, begging him to stay. He makes it outside, where a large crowd of shamblers linger. They ignore Kevin, just like the old days.

Not so for Alice.

As she pleads with him to come back, the zombies swarm on her, tear her to pieces, eat her alive.

Kevin watches, vaguely sad. The zombies pay him no mind.

He turns around and walks away.

...and that, friends, is the sort of dream you have while taking Chantix and watching a Walking Dead marathon. The End.

4 comments:

  1. I want more!
    I think you've hit a untapped resource here. Never heard of anything like this premise. I love the conflict between whether to not love and be safe, or to love and exist in constant peril. I also love the truth of how love is portrayed as actually "Here today and gone Tomorrow" as opposed to all the hype and fantasy that "love is forever."
    I hope to see more of this from you in the future.Except, instead of calling him "Kevin", you could call him Fred or something. ;)

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    1. Glad you liked it, Mitchell. I decided to just post it here instead of writing an actual story because the prospect of writing a zombie story doesn't appeal to me too much. But you're right, Fred would be a GREAT name. Heh.

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  2. I agree totally with Mr. Mitchell Gant, I think this is an awesomely weird story, excuse me dream. I also would like to see more of them.

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  3. I am a sucker for a good zombie story. This is great.

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