Shannon Turlington

Qwiklit has a 100-day writing challenge going on, 100 prompts for short pieces hidden until you click to help clear out the cobwebs and get you started writing. I’m giving it a go. Here’s my short piece for day 2, “Zombie Invasion.”

Prompt: At this moment, the area you’re in is suddenly ravaged by zombies. With the internet and phone lines cut off, all you have at your disposal are things in your room.

I’m sitting in my office, surfing Tumblr, when I hear them outside. I look out the window and groan. Not zombies again! They’re everywhere you look these days. On TV, at the movies, even in YA romance novels. Aren’t they a little played out by now? Sure, zombies have overwhelming numbers and they keep on coming and they’re disgustingly gross, but other than that, they aren’t all that scary or even interesting. There’s only so much you can do with the premise. Uh oh, it’s the end of the world, everybody grab a gun, try to rape a random woman, and turn on your fellow human beings. Oh, and make sure a couple of you guys turn to cannibalism so we can do this bit about how we’re not much better than the zombies. I like The Walking Dead as much as anybody, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s the last I want to see of zombies for a lifetime. I want something new, something dynamic, something twenty-first century. And no, I’m not talking about something old all dressed up as new, like sparkly vampires. What is that even? Vampires are not sexy. They suck blood out of people’s bodies. They are very pale. They seem to brood a lot. Not sexy at all. Who would even want to hang around with someone like that for an evening, much less forever? Werewolves are so dead end, they’ve been reduced to supporting parts. Ghosts are always a fan favorite, but now we have to treat them like people, with sad back stories and mopey dialogue. That kind of takes the scare out of them. We need new monsters!

Guess I wouldn’t be much good in a zombie invasion.