This is one of my prompt-fill for "WIPs, Snips, Bits and Bobs."
8. After the divorce was finalized, an out-of-work astrophysicist caused the zombie apocalypse.
The zombie apocalypse was nowhere in her plans. It was just something that happened. That was her story, and she was sticking to it.
God, she hated the way the guilt ate away at her. It felt like it was searing straight through to the heart and soul of her.
She’d screwed up. The whole world was being punished for it.
Huddling in the mess of her office, she gave in to her despair for a time. Sobbing into her hands, her mouth opening wide in silent screams, while snot dripped from her nose and her whole body shook.
She hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. She’d been trying to fix things ever since she’d realized what she’d done. But it was no good.
She had to face the facts of the situation: There was no reversing the zombie virus ravaging across the country.
There was no cure. No magic bullet to fix everything.
There was only going to be a fight to survive, and the reality of success or failure at living. No bringing anybody back once they were infected.
The thought of all the dead turned her stomach. And it wasn’t completely guilt. It was the hopelessness of it all. The realization that no matter what she did it wasn’t going to make anything better, because there was no longer anything to make better.
All those people out there, turned into ravening monsters, attacking their families and friends… They could not be saved.
They were already dead. And now they were killing any living creatures they came across, from human to animal. Though only humans were reanimating. So-far.
She’d thought giving in and signing the divorce papers–knowing she wasn’t going to get custody of the children–had been the worst moment of her life. It had been the ending of all that she knew and the beginning of some mysterious something she was afraid to even guess at.
She’d thought it would always be the worst day of her life.
Yet here she was, barely three months later, living in a nightmare of her own making. And every day since she’d accidentally started the zombie apocalypse had been worse than the last. To the point that her worst day was nothing, and she could have signed those papers a hundred, a thousand, a billion times more and it wouldn’t hurt as bad as this.
I fucked up, she thought. And wept.
/END
Want more? Check out "WIPs, Snips, Bits and Bobs" at https://harperkingsley.itch.io/bits-and-bobs free for May. Password: "Amorpho."
I’m actively working on the project. Currently at: Update 31.
