A new short story, an extended riff, an excuse to use the term “brain stew”, for Cellstories: A People’s History of the Zombie Apocalypse. I’ll be reading this story on Tuesday, April 6th at Quimby’s Books in Chicago at 7pm for the Joyland vs. Cellstories event. A preview:

The zombie apocalypse began on a frigid February morning in Chicago when Mildred Cavanagh, age 82, slipped and fell while attempting to step around bum’s puke that crystallized on the sidewalk. When Cavanagh came to a few moments later, she raised herself from the ground, gathered the groceries that had fallen out of her cart, and faintly murmured the word “brains”. Cavanagh was shot six hours later by Officer Mike Kowalski as she attempted to suck her son-in-law’s brain through a straw she’d bored in his skull.

The apocalypse took decades longer than it does in the movies: three weeks after Cavanagh’s fall, only 23% of Chicago’s population had joined the undead. The zombies continued with their day-to-day tasks, harvesting brains under the cover of night. Undead teachers went to school, CTA employees continued to drive their buses, and city workers drank coffee on the side of blocked streets during rush hour. In the early days, it was difficult to tell who was or was not a zombie: there were polite zombies, asshole zombies, plumber zombies and day-trading zombies, Jew zombies and goy zombies, gruff meatpacking zombies on the South Side and college-student zombies who brained their roommates with bongs.

Read the rest (on your mobile device) at Cellstories.

UPDATE 4/30/10: This story is also now up on Is Greater Than. Read it here.

The inaugural podcast includes me reading my short story “Life on Mars”, a short piece involving a resigned man grappling with guilt on the surface of Mars while living among a sociopathic shipmate. It runs about 8 minutes and is probably not appropriate for work/children. Future podcasts will include more stories, fiction, and essays, and possibly interviews and discussions.

 

 Life on Mars [7:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

26 April 1:12pm

I often lay in bed, imagining putting my head in a vice. The vice coming down, cracking my jaw, giving at least some relief. If nothing else, it might move the pain elsewhere. I think about these scenarios all the time, obsessively; I can’t help myself, the throbbing is insistent. At least inventing these scenarios gives me some sort of escape. I think about taking a hammer to my jaw, about running a screwdriver through the abscess, about slamming my head against the wall until I can’t feel a thing. Click here to read more »