She walked with them through the foothills in no particular formation, a scattered crowd sharing the same destination. In front of her was Patson, a man she knew. He’d stood with her husband against the initial assault, where townsmen fell by the score, this morning or two weeks ago, she couldn’t recall.

The clouds in the evening sky beyond Patson looked like the creek running into the lake the day Toey was born, all turquoise and foamy white streaming into ever deepening azure, almost violet in her memory. The sound had comforted the boy, her baby, quieting his cries into squinty eyed stillness there by the water, where she’d tied off and, with Patson’s own knife, funny to think of it now, cut the umbilical cord like she had five hundred times or more for almost as many women. Never once had she hoped she’d end up doing it to herself.

Beyond Patson the city did not appear to be getting closer, but at least the walking was easy, mindless trudging really, through thin brush and gentle slopes, which was fine with her. She didn’t want to think. That day had been colder than this one. Perhaps a breeze came off the water. The boy’s quieting had been a godsend, what with the Iroquois assault party so close. That’s what they called themselves, Iroquois. What she’d called herself, before she turned on them.

Iroquois? What the hell? This started as an entry for a horror short story contest, intended to be about zombies. At the end we learn that she’s been a zombie this whole time, see, and the true horror is that the people infected are still themselves inside, watching this all happen, their own zombie behavior, the killing and eating and tearing and biting, unable to control what their bodies do.

Guess I got bored with that.