“I’ve always done what is right”

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know that while I typically write essays, I occasionally write short stories. I’ve published “Paper,” “Adieu,” and “This Story is Continuing to Develop” here over the past few years. Today, I want to share another story that I wrote back in 2020. I’m not, really, a huge horror fan, but someone asked me to write a zombie story, and I penned “I’ve always done what is right.”

I’d long been planning to leave the US for France. I’d spent close to five years in Boston for school before returning to Vicksburg last year. When the zombie population increased, I knew I had to escape, not just for my own physical survival but so I could find myself and explore my inner being. After packing, I sat on my bed, my great-great uncle Alexander’s bed from 1835, and flipped through the television channels looking for something to lull me to sleep while the sounds of the nightly zombie marches echoed through the air.

I couldn’t find anything to watch. One station was showing Gone with the Wind. One of the news channels showed a bystander video of a recent zombie attack. All I could see was a man jumping out of the bed of a pickup truck chasing after one of the monsters on the left side of the screen. Off screen, the man killed the brute. The ticker at the bottom of the screen read, “New video of Local Patriots Fending Off Invaders.”