Free What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Zombier by Allison Wade Page A

door.
     

Smile
     
     
     
     
    “What’s that gloomy face? Here, let me fix it.”
    He took the scalpel and drew her a new smile.
     

Red Tape
     
     
     
     
    When her turn came, Mary walked briskly to the door of the public office. “Hello, I would like an S17 form.”
    The gray-haired municipal employee, with thick glasses on his nose, made a snort and rummaged in one of his drawers. “Have you brought your identity card and the notary deed?”
    “Yes,” said Mary, placing a stack of papers on the counter. “And here is the clearance of my religious community.”
    The employee handed her some pink pages in duplicate. “Please fill in with your data and preferences.”
    Mary grabbed the chained pen and began to write her name, social security number, the date of that day. She looked at her watch: it was 4:15 p.m., so she wrote 5 p.m. as the planned time. She checked the various boxes on the questionnaire, then gave the papers back. Her hand was trembling a little.
    “It’s 137 dollars,” said the employee as he examined her answers. “Oh... I saw you chose the option 232. This leads to an extra charge of 46 dollars. You know, for cleaning up... later.”
    “Sure, sure,” replied Mary and promptly paid in cash.
    The clerk put a stamp on each page and handed her a copy of the form.
    “Thank you and have a nice day,” said Mary with a smile.
    Singing and tapping nervously her fingers on the steering wheel, she drove back home.
    First she opened the hot water to fill the bathtub while she undressed. Then she took a large knife from the kitchen.
    Back in the bathroom, she looked at the time: five o’clock.
    Happy for having completed all the bureaucratic assignments on schedule, with a piece of tape she hung on the door a copy of the “Suicide Application Form - S17.”
    She plunged in the hot water and cut the veins of her forearms.
    In a sea of red, she passed away with no regrets, like a good citizen.
     

Monsters
     

     

Bad Jokes
     
     
     
     
    “Look! There’s a giant locust behind you!” said the guy.
    “Ah-ah. Very funny,” replied the other guy, right before the mutant insect chopped his head off.
     

Sweet Lucy
     
     
     
     
    “You’ve been like a father to me,” said Lucy with her voice cracked by tears.
    In the dim light of the room, her slender figure was approaching Steve’s desk.
    The writer stood up, the pen slipped from his fingers, his eyes wide open. “How is this possible? Is it really you?”
    Lucy, her blond hair combed into pigtails, a white and pink dress with lace and ribbons, got closer. “I trusted you.”
    Steve stared at that pretty thing with a grip to his heart; he said nothing, he was too stunned to formulate coherent words.
    Lucy, so sweet and innocent, the stuffed bunny in her left hand and the right one shyly hidden behind her back. She walked until the desk lamp lit her face, which was lined with tears, distorted by a deep agony. “I was so
happy
,” she went a bit out of tune on her last word, “before you introduced me to Mr. Barton from the discount store. Before
you
made me follow him in the back.”
    “I...” managed to say the writer. “You’re just...”
    Now she was near enough to touch him. She was tall for her age, she looked almost like a grown up, but she was only twelve.
    Steve saw her creased dress and the blood running along her legs. He stepped back and bumped into his chair, which moved with a squeal.
    “It’s you. You made him do
those things
to me!” she moved her right arm showing what she was hiding: a big butcher knife. With a quick gesture, she stuck it into his guts.
    “He entered in me. Like
this
. And
this
. And
this
.”
    And each word was a stab tearing Steve’s belly, mauling his body.
    The writer collapsed to the ground and, while a puddle of blood was spreading on the floor, he whispered, “You’re just... a character.”

Pitch Black
     
     
     
     
    Nowadays is not easy to be a writer.
    On one side, there