Furzombie - a gay furry zombie apocalypse

User busy - Josh

I grabbed my phone, holding it up to my face. The screen unlocked immediately with facial recognition, and I darted to the last message I'd sent to Mike. Still unread. Dammit.

With a flick of my thumb, I dialled 999 again. The screen flashed 'User busy' once more. Useless.

"Fuck," I muttered, the word escaping more as a sigh than an actual curse. Not that anyone was around to hear it. Not that it would do any good.

My thoughts raced. I needed to reach someone, anyone. I tried calling my mum next. She'd moved to a small village about 30 miles away when I relocated to this city. It was a quaint little place surrounded by farmland and rolling hills—a postcard-perfect escape from the world. She'd chosen it to be closer to me after I moved halfway across the country. Now, I could only hope it was still the peaceful haven it always seemed to be.

The screen stared back at me. 'User busy.'

Desperation clawed at my chest. I switched to texting instead:

Me: Hey Mum, I'm OK. I love you and hope you're safe. Lock the doors. I'll come and find you when I can. xx

I hit send, though I wasn't even sure if it would go through. The thought of her out there alone tore at me. She'd been by herself since Dad passed away when I was eleven. Cancer. A long, painful process that left us both hollow for years. She never remarried or even dated, as far as I knew. She poured everything into raising me, and now...

I swallowed hard. Guilt pressed down like a weight. She'd had hip surgery not long ago. I should have visited last weekend, but Mike had come over, and I bailed on her at the last minute.

I'd told her I'd come by this Sunday. But now? What if Sunday never came?

Don't think like that.

But the voice in my head wouldn't stop. I'm a shit son. I couldn't even be bothered to visit when I had the chance.

Anger flared next—at myself, at Mike, at the whole situation. It was both our fault. Or maybe it wasn't anyone's fault. Either way, the knot of frustration and regret wouldn't loosen.

I opened Facebook out of habit, though I wasn't sure what I expected to find. The timeline was full of normalcy—photos of people on nights out, selfies with stupid filters, pets doing silly things. Scrolling felt surreal. The world I saw here hadn't caught up to the reality I was living in.

A photo of me and Mike popped up, taken last Wednesday when he stayed over. My mind wandered to that night. We'd been just friends then, though the lines blurred whenever he was around. I wasn't big on social media, keeping my profile private and my circle small. The performative nature of it all had always annoyed me.

Even my closest friends would post exaggerated versions of our time together—a staged selfie with more filters than a fish tank, accompanied by a caption that made a quick shopping trip sound like an exotic adventure. It all felt so fake.

I scrolled to refresh the feed, but the screen froze, then flashed 'Unable to connect.'

My data was on. I checked again. Still, nothing worked.

Frustration mounted. I tried calling Mike again. The same result: 'User busy.'

The realization hit hard. The phone, the internet—they were useless now. A lifeline I'd depended on for years, severed.

I turned to my laptop as a last resort, opening the browser to log into Facebook. The result was no different. The browser's message was plain and cold: 'Internet offline.'