Another long night of fending off the walking dead and my own sense of foreshortened future had left me bereft of hope and in dire need of a drink. The drink would wait, as I found the following hastily scrawled note on the fridge.

This is just to say

I’ve had a bit of me eaten

by a zombie that was hiding by

the icebox

as I went to fetch the frozen plums

you had been saving

for breakfast.

Forgive me.

Life is too delicious,

but now I feel so odd,

so cold.

I didn’t want to look away from the note, but I could hear a slow, shuffling step bringing the stench of new death into the kitchen. Thank goodness for shotguns I couldn’t help but think. Though I’d done so a hundred times in the past few days, working the pump action seemed to go in slow motion and expel a bit of my heart with the spent shell.

Without looking, I aimed toward the noise, whispered, “Forgive me,” and I shot my last friend in the world.