Free Blog of the Dead (Book 3): Lost by Lisa Richardson

would happily have rested their tired legs here while eating sandwiches from shampoo scented fingers.
    Mal headed over to the right of the room, to a black leather sofa. He rolled up a pillow and a quilt into a bundle and tossed them to the floor between the sofa and a wood framed armchair. He motioned for us to sit. Me, Misfit and Clay took a seat on the sofa, while Kay sat on the armchair. Charlotte perched on the arm of the sofa and Mal settled himself on a small coffee table that I wasn’t sure would take his weight, but it did, albeit with a little creak.
    ‘I guess you all could do with a little breather,’ said Mal, smiling but squinting a little from the light pouring in from the tall sash window behind us. ‘I’d offer you a cup of strong, sweet tea for the shock, but I have neither tea nor sugar. I have rain water though. With a good imagination, it tastes like the finest Darjeeling, or the best Columbian Arabica, depending on your preference. The mind could also be convinced to imagine a good Pinot Noir, if you’d rather.’ We sat, trembling and weak, me gripping Misfit’s hand – the right one, emblazoned with the word LOST – staring at this strangely cheerful man. Even Kay was lost for words. ‘Ah! Brandy, I can offer you a shot of brandy.’ Mal looked behind him and indicated to the piles of boxes and bags stacked in the kitchenette, all full of supplies. ‘Yes… no?’ he said, turning back to us.
    ‘I’m OK,’ I said, finding my voice. ‘Thanks for the help though.’
    ‘No trouble at all. I see fewer and fewer humans on those streets down there. Most scurry through as quiet as mice. I would miss them if I wasn’t always watching out for them. But you lot, well…’
    ‘We’re noisy, we know,’ said Kay.
    ‘Where were you headed?’ asked Mal. ‘Not much around here but zombies and more zombies. And the crowds are getting bigger. So what’s brings you to Zombie Town?’
    ‘It’s a long story,’ I added.
    ‘You lost one of yours down there…’
    ‘She wasn’t one of ours, man. No way,’ said Clay.
    ‘She’s part of the long story,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah we’re not normally that noisy,’ said Kay.
    ‘She was a very troubled lady,’ said Charlotte.
    ‘She was a fucktard,’ said Kay.
    ‘She was lonely,’ said Charlotte.
    ‘OK. Well, it’s always sad when another human goes Z-O-M. But, I guess the bright side is that she slowed a lot of the zombies down enough for the rest of you to escape up here.’
    ‘ Bright side ? It’s been a while since there’s been any such thing as a bright side,’ said Kay.
    ‘There’s always a bright side,’ said Mal, and I noticed even Charlotte frowned in confusion at Mal’s words.
    ‘In the zombie apocalypse?’ I said.
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘Mate, there’s no bright side to this shitty situation,’ said Clay.
    ‘But of course there is!’
    ‘A bright side to the zombie apocalypse… how so?’ asked Charlotte.
    ‘A bright side to the death of loved ones? Mate, you’re sick,’ said Clay.
    Mal shifted awkwardly on the coffee table but he continued to sit tall. ‘Listen, were you all – hand on hearts – happy before the apocalypse? I mean really happy. Or did it occur to you how fucked up society was? Yeah, you loved your friends and family. Though friends and family were luxuries that not everyone had back then, but I’m guessing most did. But did you appreciate them back then? Did you appreciate what you had? Or did you moan about it… want more, something different, something better…?’ Mal leaned forwards and glanced at each of us in turn. ‘Before the outbreak, schools prepared the young for a lifetime of labour. We were all sucked into believing that we needed stuff, and in order to get the stuff we had to work to get the money to get the stuff. Working for the stuff made us depressed so we wanted more stuff to make us feel better about working to get the stuff in the first place, but, you guessed it, that stuff was