Teapocalypse Now

"They are coming, man! It's over! You just couldn't resist, could you Jay?" I said.

Jay had no answer.

The horde was outside the door. We were safe only as long as it held, and that would not be for much longer.

We blocked the door with the help of all the furniture we could find, buying some time. But they were unstoppable.

"Tombies Man, who would have thought!"

Tombies were very similar to - Zombies of course - but for one major exception. They did not want to eat our brains - they wanted to drink our Tea!

Yes! There were hordes of Tombies everywhere. They were breaking into homes and drinking up all the tea they could find. They had highly evolved olfactory senses; whenever they would smell tea being made nearby, they would break in.

Some Tombies had evolved. They would only break in for 'high quality' tea and would look down on the 'ordinary' Tombies as uncultured or uncivilized. They quickly gained the nickname – you guessed it – 'Snombies'.

There was havoc everywhere.

Now, as we faced the inevitable, Jay and I reminisced about all the good times we had had. It had been our ritual ever since we became roommates - to drink tea, every day, several times a day, hours on end.

Our love for tea had a longer history though. Jay had started drinking tea by age twelve, although his parents strictly forbade it.

"You will become an addict!" They would warn him while sipping their tenth cup of the day.

However, Jay was resourceful. He would secretly acquire tea powder from some shady kids and either smell it to get high, or boil it to make tea and drink it all by himself. By sixteen, he was a full-blown addict.

When the blight damaged tea plantations worldwide, there was pandemonium. Tea was in short supply everywhere. The government, police, military - all survived and functioned on cutting chai. After the blight, they all collapsed. Law and order broke down.

Jay and I, though, had plenty of tea stocked up. As long as we had this stock, we could avoid becoming Tombies ourselves. Unfortunately, it was not a matter of 'if' but a matter of 'when'.

While Jay and I continued our reminiscing, (while having tea, and more boiling on the stove), the Tombies pounded on the door. It was the smell of tea that had attracted the Tombies to our house in the first place.

We were on the third round of tea when they finally broke in. Pushing and shoving us aside, they drank up all the tea, grabbed all the stock from the cupboards, and ran away.

As we saw the dispersing Tombies, we looked at each other in despair.

"We have no choice." Said Jay.

"No choice." I agreed.

As the Tombies ran, we joined them in the hunt for tea.

We were now part of the great horde, the great unending chase.

We were the Tombies now.