A tale in which an angry god brings a teenage girl back from the dead.
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"And at the crack of dawn, they rose from their ashes, abandoning their graves to wreck havoc upon the world."
Neith Johnson was dead. Six-feet-under after being brutally mur...
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I sat back on the couch with my legs crossed, holding onto a bowl of cereal. One spoonful filling my mouth thoughtlessly after the other. A sitcom droned on while I tried to sate a hunger that I knew I couldn't put a dent in.
It went on for a few minutes before the news began. There was a while before the recent beheadings were addressed - a fuzzy video of the head was shown after a warning for viewer discretion. No other information was given other than a plea for those with information to call a hotline. The news anchor announced that a curfew was being put in place for the townfolk's safety until the perpetrator was caught.
I changed the channel, trying to ignore the knot in my stomach. It was fine. This was fine. The police would catch whoever was behind it sooner or later.
But people like Jayda might ignore the curfew on the principal alone.
My eyes flitted to the clock beside the TV. 12:31 AM. It was too late to call her and there was the possibility of her ignoring my text. Talking to her about obeying the curfew in person was probably the better way to go about it.
The front door creaked open and I looked over to raise a brow at Gran as she stepped in, shaking off her coat.
"Late night," I said. "There's a curfew now. You shouldn't come home this late for a while."
"Too many papers to grade." She tossed the coat near me, narrowly avoiding my bowl of Cocoa Puffs.
"Assign less, Professor. Did you eat dinner?"
"Plenty." Gran joined me on the couch. The floral scent of her perfume was remained vaguely present under the smell of shawarma. "Anything interesting on?"
"Horror marathon starts at one."
She leaned back into the cushion with a sigh. "Oh, goodie."
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It took years for morning to roll around, but Gran and I were still on the couch, bleary eyed with popcorn on our breath. Gran had dozed off a couple times, but she always came around long enough to watch the end of whatever movie was playing at the moment, only to doze off when the beginning of the next one began. She didn't give any lectures today, so she tried her best to stay up and watch with me. It was sweet.
She dropped me off at the police station on her way to breakfast with a friend rather than letting me wait for Sheriff Moore to call.. I shot Jayda a text on the way there, asking if she would mind picking me up later. She replied within a minute, sending a No prob, hag! along with some obscure meme I couldn't make any sense out of.
I ended up there before the Sheriff so I sat down inside his office, making small talk with a secretary who was acquainted with Gran. He was friendly, telling me stories about the odd happenings around the station to keep me entertained. The man seemed happy to have company despite how early it was. I doubted that I would have been so smiley if I had to deal with somebody at the current hour.
"Did you hear about the zombies?" he asked eventually. His phone was in his hand, thumb sliding up the cracked screen as he scrolled down.
I stilled. "The what?"
"It's all over Twitter right now. An outbreak in Florida. If you ask me a bunch of college kids probably just snorted bath salts again." He shook his head. "Fucking Florida, man."
"Fucking Florida," I echoed.
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