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The smell
of the roast wafted through the kitchen and into the dining
room as June opened the oven door. The meat was golden
brown, liquid bubbling in the bottom of the pan. Perfect.
June transferred the roast to a porcelain serving platter
and took it to her family, already seated at the dinner
table.
“Smells
great, Mom!” her son said, smiling at her.
“My, aren’t
you hungry,” answered June. She placed the platter at the
center of the table, removed her apron and sat down.
“Darling, could you carve?” she asked, looking at her
husband. “It seems one of us can’t wait.”
“Make that
two,” replied her husband with a grin. He picked up the
knife. The roast faded from brown to a delicate shade of
pink as he worked the knife inward, the center of the meat
showing dark and red.
Plates were
passed and filled and the three tucked into the meal. June’s
husband paused in mid-bite and laid down his fork. “How’s
your week been, son?”
“It’s been
marvelous,” June jumped in. “He’s been just fine. I told you
he’d make the adjustment quickly and he has.”
In the dead
of night two weeks ago, a pack of zombies had burst through
the front door into their home. June didn’t recognize the
first to hold her down and clamp a drooling mouth upon her
shoulder, biting off the first chunk of flesh. But she did
recognize the small face tearing into her ankle—he’d been in
one of her older son’s classes.
She’d been
so confused—hadn’t he died in a car accident?
Now that
the family was zombified, June, her husband and sons learned
to cope with the enormous changes in their lives. They
trained the constant, unbearable hunger into socially
acceptable appetites—or ones that at least wouldn’t get them
arrested. They adjusted to the disturbing, ever-growing loss
of motor skills and resigned themselves to the
bluish-purple-yellow-black discoloration of the skin. And
they learned to walk off and leave the frequently sloughed
rotting chunks of flesh. |
