The Z Contingency

Chapter 33

“Really? Zombie Queen again?” he blurted out in a voice dripping with sarcasm and disdain, before catching himself and shutting up, as he remembered how much he enjoyed the ending last time.

Last time, it was shortly after he saw that government warning about preparing for an impending zombie apocalypse. At first, he thought someone had hacked into the CDC’s computer, then he thought they were playing a practical joke. When he realized it was a legitimate site, he became indignant that they were spending his tax dollars on things like this. But when they suddenly retracted it, and made public statements that zombies were not possible, and that it was just a campaign to educate the public on emergency preparedness, he was frightened. This smelled of a cover-up. The government knew something, and they realized that they had let the cat out of the bag, so they had to create some phony story to distract people. It was in this frame of mind that he was suddenly confronted by his ex-girlfriend.

She stood in his doorway, her brunette hair mussed up with streaks of dried blood, and a tiara perched precariously atop her head. Her skin was a pasty white instead of the usual golden bronze, and she had bruises and open sores on her face and body. His heart skipped a beat as a wave of panic swept through him, so he was too shocked to react when she suddenly lurched forward, teetering on her stilettos, and gurgling “brains” in a voice that would have made a Romero zombie proud. She wrapped her outstretched arms around him, and pulled his head close to hers as she opened her mouth to bare bloodstained teeth.

Leaning in as if to bite his throat, she suddenly tilted her head up and stuck her tongue in his ear, and then pulled back to laugh hysterically. “Gotcha!” she gleefully exclaimed. She loved playing practical jokes on him, which was one reason they were no longer dating, even though they had remained friends. After she was able to stop laughing and caught her breath, she pulled in close again, and this time, whispering into his ear as she unbuckled his belt, and slid her body down his, until she was on her knees, kneeling in front of him. “I’m the Zombie Queen. You should be kneeling before me...” she pouted.

His heart was still palpitating as he looked down at her. “You’re a crafty bitch,” he murmured, but appreciatively.

At this memory, he leered at her with the expectation of a repeat performance. He noted that she didn’t have nearly as much of that fake zombie makeup on this time. Her lids were faintly tinted a pearlescent white, and a blood red lipstick colored her lips. The tiara was still there, but this time she wore a shimmering white gown. Gone were the open sores and oozing blood. Only the pale skin and bruises adorned her flesh. Decided to go with a minimalist look, I guess. Still sexy as hell, though.

Just like last time, she lurched toward him, and just like last time, she wrapped her outstretched arms around him to pull him close. This time though, instead of moving away from his throat to stick her tongue in his ear, she bit a chunk out of his windpipe. This time, he was the one who went down on his knees, and he exhaled his last scream with a gurgling of blood as the command “kneel before the Zombie Queen” flitted through his fading consciousness. She tore away at his scalp with bloody claws, splattering the front of her white dress with crimson, and repeatedly slammed his head into the ground to expose his still steaming brains.