Happy Holloween

"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the Zombie Apocalypse was that it never happened. Humanity had been so thorough in saturating their culture with the means to identify and eliminate the zombie threat that it was over nearly before it began.

In fact, it's likely that had it not spawned on Canal Street (a well-known den of drunkards and voodoo where shambling about and moaning is perfectly acceptable behavior) the outbreak would have been stifled in an afternoon. As it was, the whole situation was perfectly contained after only a few days and about 36 victims. And most of those were killed by organized citizens using firearms and barstools. A few were saved for study, and several were bought by a television station and used for a series of rather creative reality shows.

It is impressive to note that despite humanity's hundreds of years of planning and propaganda for a potential Zombie epidemic, they were completely unprepared for the Flu Epidemic that eventually wiped them out."

-Excerpt from the Galactic History Primer of Balthura IV, regarding extinct species

Just like a zombie movie.

They stood before him, barely moving. He gripped the weed whacker, and fingered the trigger. The sun was hot, and he could smell their cloying stench in the still air.

Nothing to do but go for it.

He pulled the trigger,and the weed whacker spun to life. Whirring noisily, he took a step forward and swiped at the nearest foe. The buzz deepened as the cord bit into rubbery flesh, but it quickly rose to a wine again once it passed through. One down.

Initially, he was cautious. He probed along the edges of the crowd; cutting a few down here, then moving to another part. Never letting himself get too deep in. It was slow going, but at least it was going.

Looking up, he saw the thickest mass of them yet. Shocked, his finger slipped off the trigger. The weed whacker slowed, then stopped. In the sudden silence, neither side moved. Then, almost as one, they swayed towards him.

"To hell with this," he thought. "It's taking too long. I'll get tired. Or the weed whacker will break. Or the twine will run out. Just take them head on."

He stepped into the thickest part and raised his improvised weapon, swinging it in a wide arc. He was wearing gloves, but his arms were bare and he could feel bits of pulp and sticky matter landing on them. He angled the whacker the wrong way and a spray of organic debris arced up into the air, landing on his head, his face, his shoulders. They never made a sound. Whole swaths of them cut down, and not single cry of pain or agony. They went down like grain, like wheat, like...well, like weeds. A sense of wild euphoria gripped him, and he fought the urge to laugh.

Aside from how he'd look doing it, some of that shit might get in his mouth.

There was a faint smell of ozone, like something just on the point of burning. He didn't know if it was the motor in the weed whacker, the friction of the twine against their flesh, or both. It hung in his nostrils, blotting out the sticky sweet aroma that wafted off the remains. Then a fleck landed on his lip, and he could suddenly taste it...

It was the better part of an hour before it was over. By the time he was finished, there was so much on him it looked like he'd rolled around in the remains. But his expression showed a hint of pride as he lifted the whacker to one shoulder and surveyed his handiwork.

"It might not be the easiest way," he said to himself "and it might be messy. But it'll be at least a month before I have to come into the backyard and take care of these weeds again."