by Joshua Guess
The best present I got that day turned out to be a twelve inch grand gourmet Santoku kitchen knife. I don’t even like to cook.
The day of my wedding bloomed hot and bright, a spring day, my mother’s garden a chaos of red and white flowers. Precisely planned for my perfect day.
Chris was still upstairs getting ready. I was downstairs, greeting friends and relatives, when it happened.
Of course.
Zombies came to Kansas on my wedding day.
The first one, an old man in a jogging suit, staggered up the driveway and bit Adam’s new girlfriend Paige’s jugular clear out of her throat before anyone could do anything.
She was kind of a bitch. But still, harsh way to go.
At least it let us know, in no uncertain terms, what was going on. I mean, there are times when you just don’t question your horror movie upbringing.
“Chris!” I screamed.
Something in my voice must have let him know that this wasn’t simply a hey-you’re-running-late or a where-did-you-leave-my-hair-dryer scream, because he came hurtling down the stairs, coat-tails flying out behind him.
He looks freaking good in a tux.
He assessed the situation and then came over the porch rail and kicked the zombie into the neighbor’s azaleas. I ran into the house, grabbing the Santoku from the display table, and sped outside.
The neighbor had already backed over the zombie with his pickup truck. I stared at the driveway, nauseated, looking back and forth from Paige’s mangled body to the lumpy remains of her attacker.
“Is this for real?” I asked.
Chris took my hand. “Come on,” he said.
We got everybody inside and locked the doors. We turned on the news. It wasn’t good, but it was very clear—finally. “Stay in your homes. Don’t let strangers approach you. Let the authorities take care of things.”
Chris turned me to face him.
“Rachel,” he said. He’s always serious when he says my name. “I’m going to get the guns.”
“What? You can’t go out there now.”
“I have to,” he said. “It’s only a couple blocks. We’ll be fine. Patrick, Gregory, we’ve got a mission.”
He kissed me and they hurried out the door
It was all very dashing and heroic.
They left, jogging down the street in their wedding splendor, a groom and two attendants. My bridesmaids, Shannon and Danielle, stood and watched them with me.
We saw another one of the zombie creeps shuffling down at the other end of the street. None of them moved quickly at that point. The guys would be fine, I told myself.
“All right,” I said to the rest of the wedding party. “We’ve got work to do. Danielle, lock all the doors. Shannon, get some of the other guys to prop furniture against all the downstairs windows. Use the dining room table and the big bookcase in the living room. Aunt Janet, move all the food back to the kitchen. Mom, help me finish getting dressed.”
It may have been the apocalypse, but I was still getting married.
I came downstairs fifteen minutes later, glorious in my white summer dress, red shoes, and sparkling necklace. My hair was up in a curly, bouncy bun, a red and white flower tucked in next to it. I had turned this way and that in front of the mirror in Mom’s room: I looked good.
The first floor of my parents’ house was a shuffling mess of activity. The living room and dining room were both big hollow spaces. Dad was directing a couple of the cousins in pushing the couches up on their sides in front of the big picture windows.
Everyone stopped and applauded when I came into the room. I grinned and turned around and did a little curtsy. There was a murmur of “Oh you look so good”s and “Aren’t you just lovely”s.
“How are we situated?” I asked Dad.
“Well, everyone’s here, at least, so no one else should be traveling to get here, which is good from what they’re saying on the news. Chris and the guys aren’t back yet, though.” He didn’t seem worried, unless you knew him very well. Mom came and put her hand in his.
I found a corner of window to peek through. Another of the creeps was stumbling down the street. I heard the radio click on behind me: another news report.
“I repeat, stay inside. The authorities have been notified. The infected are growing in number, and the streets are not safe—” The radio was shut off amidst a mutter of angry voices. I turned around to find guilty faces regarding me.
“Sorry,” Danielle said.
“They should have been back by now,” I said.
I thought of the game on Chris’s smartphone: Zombie Run. It tracked your GPS and set you up with Zombie opponents you were supposed to avoid. He could make it from my parents’ house to his in eight minutes flat at a jog.
Then we heard the fierce reports of gunfire.
“All right,” I said. “We’re going after them.”
I rearmed myself with the Santoku. “Danielle? Shannon? Are you coming?”
They looked at each other and back at me. Shannon snatched up the shovel from beside the fireplace. Danielle took the poker my dad handed her.
I kicked off my red shoes and put my tennis shoes on instead; the girls followed my lead. “Lock the door behind us,” I told Mom. “But watch for us! We’ll be back soon.”
I ran outside, Shannon and Danielle right behind me, our makeshift weapons clutched tight in front of us.
We ran toward Chris’s apartment. Thank god I’d been working out steadily for the last three months of wedding preparations: I was in the best shape of my life. We dodged two of the zombies, dead women who made halfhearted, moaning grabs for us before we turned a corner.
We were half way there when we heard more gunshots and the zing! of ricochet from down an alley. “Come on,” I said, skidding to a stop as I spotted another zombie at the street corner.
We bolted down the alley, and at the end came out to find Chris, Gregory, and Patrick cornered by a dozen zombies—they looked like a group of preppy high school guys, aside from their obvious deadness. Chris was trying to reload the handgun while the three of them juggled two rifles, two swords, another handgun, and boxes of ammo.
“You brought the swords?” I said, surprised. “Come on, those things are crap.”
My voice distracted the zombies. They turned toward us and most of them took reeling steps back toward us. Gregory dropped the box of ammo, sending bullets skittering across the street, and grabbed one of the swords out of Patrick’s arms.
It was one of those cheap katana knock-offs you see at hippie stores at the mall. He swung at one of the zombies that was still focused on the guys, aiming to chop the thing’s head of.
It stuck halfway through the neck. Gregory let it go in disgust as the zombie careened sideways. Patrick sent it tumbling over backwards with a snap kick.
Chris had gotten his gun loaded, but one of the other zombies was on him. I heard a cry of rage and realized it was me as I charged toward them.
Those fake katanas may have been junk, but the santoku went through zombie neck without a snag.
Chris and I stared at each other, both of us splattered with zombie blood down the fronts of our finery. Then he shoved me behind him, took a stance, aimed, and blew the heads off the rest of the zombies in the street.
The six of us stood in the sudden deaf silence of our ringing ears. Finally Shannon walked up to me and said something.
“What?” I yelled.
“It’s time for your wedding!”
“Oh!” I grabbed Chris’s hand and started pulling him along the street. “Come on, guys!” I said, and they followed me.
We got back to my parents’ house, only dodging one more creep. They let us in and barricaded the door once again.
My hearing was starting to return, so I caught snippets of the news. “Authorities overwhelmed… Wichita in disaster… leave the city… do not approach strangers.” Well, you know what it was like.
I stood with friends and family gathere
d in my parents’ living room, listening to the fall of Kansas.
“We’ll go out to grandma and grandpa’s farm,” I said. “Before dark.”
“I’ve got to get home and make sure my parents are all right,” Danielle said.
A murmur of similar comments ran around the room.
“Wait, wait,” Chris said. “There’s something we need to do first.”
“What?”
He tugged me around to face him. “Get married.”
“Now?” I hesitated. “We should get to safety.”
“We may never be safe again, Rachel.” (See how he’s always serious when he says my name?) “We may never,” he looked around the room at everyone, “all be together again. So we’re getting married now, while everyone’s here, and we’re dressed. You think I’m gonna get in a tux again after this?” He waved a hand in vague disgust at the rusty red spatters on his shirt.
Fortunately, my wedding colors were red and white. Also, Danielle said she could photoshop the blood out of the pictures, but I don’t know if she ever got a chance. Things happened pretty quickly after that—the way they do in this world.
But for a little while, time waited for us. Dad performed the ceremony, Danielle took the pictures, Patrick and Gregory stood guard with guns at the windows, and Mom and Aunt Janet served the cake.
Chris and I held hands through the ceremony, so tightly I thought we might not come unstuck at the end. Then he kissed me, and that, at least, was perfect.
And then, of course, we gathered up guns and knives, food and supplies, and drove out to the farm. We didn’t stay there long—after that we were on the move a lot. Eventually we started having more trouble with the surviving humans than we did with the zombies, and finally, as you know, we ended up at the compound with Josh and his crew.
So that’s my story, the day the world ended. And I’m sorry, but I can’t help it: it was also one of the best days of my life.
Rachel Ayers lives and writes in Kansas, from whence she hopes to hitch a tornadic ride to adventure in another world. In the meantime, she reads, daydreams, and moderates a fairy tale discussion forum on LiveJournal. She has a Creative Writing degree from Pittsburg State University. Her story "Job Hunting" won First Prize in the 2010 HarperCollins Radiant Prose contest. Her comic, Near and Far, can be found at www.nearandfarcomic.com, and her blog about life and writing is at richlayers.livejournal.com. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Isabelle Rose's Twisted Fairy Tale Anthology volumes 1 and 2 (Wicked East Press), A Thousand Faces, Puffin Circus, Ink Bean
Magazine, and Death Rattle.
An Arc of Silver
Joshua Guess
Tanaka Shigeru settled back into his chair and let his thoughts wander. It was only this time of day, when the clients had all been seen to, the accounting details gone over, that he was able to let himself relax.
His gaze wandered for only a moment before it settled on the sword displayed with simple reverence on the stand across from his desk. There were two, actually, one sleek and new and one very old but well cared-for. It was the older of the two blades that caught his attention, as it so often did after the rush of the day was over. Though he had only touched the thing infrequently since bringing it here, his hands tingled with memories of the rough texture of the ray-skin hilt.
Shigeru had brought the old blade with him when he had returned from his father's funeral, all those years ago. It had been the old man's wish that his only son keep the ancient weapon, that he always remember his roots. It had been a bittersweet time for Shigeru, the last weeks of his father's life spent with his son, so different. Apologies and catching up, all in the face of the inevitable.
Going back to Wakayama prefecture had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done. Though the rift that had formed between he and his father had begun to heal years before, there was always something between them when they spoke. Neither Shigeru nor his father spoke of it, but the night his son had announced his decision to forgo the plans that had long been decided for him had long been a point of contention between them.
Shigeru shook his head, though he didn't know he was doing it. The irony of it all was that the years of hard training at the hands of his father and the senior students at the dojo were what prepared him for life outside of Wakayama. The discipline he had developed had served him well through business school and the years that followed as he built a complex of companies that were known around the world.
It had been decades since he had practiced his skills with the intense drive he'd had as a boy. Oh, there were twice weekly trips to a local dojo where he could lose himself in the movements of body and blade, but he never sparred. Those times were meditation for him, a period when thought could be abandoned and Shigeru could embrace the familiar motions.
In the end, his father had told his son that he was proud. Shigeru knew that the old man had been telling the truth. What father could feel anything but pride for a son who built an empire from nothing? And yet, he knew that at the last, there was a shred of doubt. Not disappointment that his son had chosen a different path, but fear that perhaps Shigeru had lost something profound and simple when he had done so. The old man spoken of it in class enough times for Shigeru to know that his father feared for his son. For his happiness and contentment.
Shigeru stood suddenly, striding across the room with his hand held out. Bah! The old man had always seemed so calm and sublime, living so simply in their home tucked away in the country. Father had been a holdover from an earlier time, a man who chose to improve himself and those who wished to learn at the expense of ambition.
Shigeru could not have been more different. As his hand hovered over the ray-skin hilt of the ancient katana before him, his eyes flickered to the other blade on the stand. It was new and expensive, one of the few modern katana allowed to be made in Japan. It had cost him as much as a small car, yet Shigeru had purchased it without hesitation. It had seemed to him a perfect compliment to him—new and modern, yet created in the spirit of an older, better culture.
The thing had appealed to his sense of self. Though his father never understood it, Shigeru had not given up the teachings he had been given. He had only used them in a way that worked with the flow of his own life.
The old man had improved his marital skills and understanding of self, and Shigeru had built an empire.
For years, that had been enough to sustain him, knowing that the lessons worked into him like oil into fine wood had not been wasted. But lately, halfway through his fifties, something had been missing. Not a sense of accomplishment—he had reached every goal he'd ever set, and done so with honor.
No, it was a sense of purpose. Not yet fifty-five, Shigeru felt that he had no direction left. No challenge to face. Perhaps his father had been right all along; the only challenge that you can never win is that of understanding and improving self.
Thoughts swirling, Shigeru's hand shot to his side as his mobile buzzed in his pocket. He thumbed the screen, reading the message that showed there. The words didn't make sense to him. Rioting? Murders all over the streets?
Shigeru flipped on the television. Every channel was the same—all over the streets, people were rioting, killing in huge numbers. He switched to a local channel for Kyoto, saw the very building he was in in the background of the image. Swarms of bloody people tearing others to shreds, reporters running.
The door to his office burst open, half a dozen young men and women tumbling in. They spoke in a jumble of terrified shrieks. They were interns, young people who often showed their dedication by working as late as he did. He quieted them, and calmly spoke to one, a young woman that gave him a detailed assessment of the situation outside.
He listened, face passive though his mind was racing. The world had surely gone mad. The children before him, younger than his own, needed someone to help them. To protect them. They needed a place of safety.
Fortunately, Shigeru knew of such a place. It was still his, though he hadn
't been back since the funeral. Quiet, simple, far away from people. Tucked away where you had to look to find it, surrounded by farmland. The trouble was getting there. How to get there?
His father's words echoed from the past across his mind.
“Every journey begins with one step.”
Shigeru took a step over to the stand, hand falling onto the sheath of the ancient blade. He secured the weapon under his belt, handing the other, expensive blade to one of the interns. They would have to get to a vehicle. They would have to fight.
One step at a time. Each movement with purpose, working toward the larger goal.
Shigeru looked at the children, who nodded to him. The girl he had spoken to held his other blade, the familiar stance of one who knows the use of a blade in her posture. He nodded to her, and gave the girl a brief smile.
He drew the ancient weapon in an arc of silver, and led the way.
Rollin' in the Deep
by Annetta Ribken
I'm watchin' them from the tree stand. They can't climb trees too good, so I think I'm purty safe up here. It's a might chilly when the wind comes a'whippin, though the winter season is still a few weeks off, I reckon. I nicked some of that stuff Dr. Evans was makin' in the clinic, and sprayed it all over my jacket like Daddy taught me when he was trying to make me a man by taking me out huntin'. I'm kerful to stay upwind anyways, and I got a purty good sightline even through the leaves. Only then it was about deer huntin', and now it's about makin' sure the zombies don't get me.
At least, not 'til I'm ready.