Short Story: PROJECTS
We figured ourselves as safe.
START
Towards the end we lived for little things. We all had our projects. Anything to starve off the boredom that got so many of us killed. Where once we built fences and weapons, now we raided craft stores, adult bookshops, and a candy warehouse over the river. You can eat Skittles four years past expiry. You can use lube, face wash and shampoo forever. Craft glue is apocalypse-proof. We stopped going to parks and pet stores and office buildings. The office buildings were left to rot. The only things worth taking from an office were the water cooler bottles and the stationary.
We stayed in our armoured mansion and high walls. We had the guy across the way who could figure out when the afflicted were coming. Some witchdoctor they called Meyer. He had a posse. And thus, we figured ourselves as safe. We had as much of a life as we were ever going to get so we stayed active:
Trina learned how to sew.
Mac taught himself to draw.
Sally, a solicitor, cut everyone’s hair.
I made collages.
Everyone did something fun except Monica.
We gave her a room in the attic and she sat up there with a map and some photographs. Occasionally, she fired off rounds with the guys across the road. That was it. She was easy enough to live with, pleasant even, but I remember one night at dinner we were all talking about our stuff and someone new to the house asked her about her project. Monica shrugged, ‘I’m trying to kill this guy. Again. That’s all I’ve got on at the moment.’
END
— IAIN
