The end of the world started with a national tragedy. I’m not much for politicians beyond scientific grant money, but even we eggheads sit up and take notice when a conflagration of a wreck leaves a section of the Beltway turned to melted asphalt mixed with charred metal and a whole slew of staffer’s ashes.
Most people hadn’t experienced anything of that international impact in their lifetimes—whether you hate-watched or mourned, that death had an impact—which meant the whole world was glued to their screens watching the pixelated funeral when the apocalypse was broadcast live, in HD-technicolor glory.
Early fall, the leave with just a hint of change, while the markers of Arlington popped bright white against the still-green grass and matching the crisp white gloves of the Marines. The widow’s black net veil and the ol’ red-white-and-blue draped over the coffin, both fluttering in a gentle breeze. Black-clad security and diplomats alike, everywhere the eye could see, with high-value targets stubbornly insisting they knew better than the handlers trying to keep on schedule and secure. Even though they’d rushed the funeral, practically every country’s flag joined the procession of diplomatic limousines.
You see where this might be going, I’m sure, so I’ll skip ahead. No one expected the man to sit straight up in his coffin, and the twenty-one gun salute ended in a blaze of fire as he tried to give his wife the most grotesque kiss you can imagine.
Recruitment skyrocketed overnight. The widow was toast, but they actually sold posters of the Marines protecting the diplomats before everything went to hell. This one guy—you know the one, the guy with the famously grim face who finally took Zombie Target One down, Chavez—took leave and went on a roadtrip to get away from the fuss. Only it turned into a tour, because everybody wanted to buy the Hero of Arlington a beer.
Funnily enough, my daughter said Chavez was the only one who kept his head about the praise. She’d been excited enough to be part of that honor guard, and hit a reality check right quick when the Secret Service fools were busy puking behind the headstones.
We’d had a watch party for the funeral once we knew she’d be there, and I’ve never been so damned proud of my daughter as the day she helped take down the world’s first politician that really was a zombie.
A blur of red-striped and white-capped blue, she was, mouth open and barking orders. She’d said later her training had taken over. Over and over, she’d repeated the words, as the whole town turned out to celebrate their local-girl-done-good moment.
My baby girl, she was, tall and strong, immortalized in the sunlight beaming. The epitome of the Corps, she was. Once a Marine, always a Marine.
We merry fools thought it was over. Nobody knew about the incubation period then, or what aerosolized brains would do to the rest of the world. Thanks to diplomacy, the whole damn world had just been exposed.
A month later, the Hero of Arlington took a bite out of the beautiful woman draped over his arm while she was still sleeping. They shambled into town, still hand in hand, and it might’ve been lucky they’d been out in the woods if the survivors hadn’t fled to all corners.
Of course, without those two, we wouldn’t know that zombies get smarter in groups. Which might have gone unnoticed — the public education system being what it is — if the Marine Corps hadn’t been the hardest hit.
I’m still convinced they’re out there in the hills, just watching. I can feel the eyes at my back when I’m hunting. I have one of their own, you see, and enough supplies to hold out for two more years at present consumption.
Tears burned down my face the day I locked her in, hot streaks of salt. My daughter insisted, before she turned. I can still hear her pleading. “Just in case, Ma.”
I’ve been an egghead since the day I got my first chemistry set, the day before I turned nine years old. I was a bookworm before that, and never lost the research habit. So I will save my baby girl however much you doubt me, because I’m one of the few who can, and because I can still see her. Beautiful in her torn uniform as she slams moaning into the locked basement door, her mind trapped into a shambling shadow of herself.
I’ll find that desperate cure, and once she’s restored, my role is over. She and God can judge me with tears and a hailstorm of fire if they must, and I’ll go willing into the darkness with a smile upon my face that I got to see her one last time. My daughter, the Marine.
Until I’ve found my scientific miracle, I’ll take care of that child, because that’s what mothers do. Once a mother, always a mother.
And mamas keep their babies fed, whether it’s pureed carrots through the hangar door or fresh brains through the basement window.
***
With apologies to the USMC for turning the Corps into zombies. Semper fi!
Thanks to Cedar for getting me to finally finish this snippet (originally inspired by an anthology opportunity that I passed on a while back) with this week’s writing prompt: The love of a mother takes many forms…
My prompt went to Padre: He loved staring into the night sky and watching the stars dance, but it was a lonely ritual.
