This is just a little one-shot that came to me last night. Rated M for violence. I'm not going to write the whole book from this angle, just a little taster. I'll leave the rest to your imagination, and with that obscure introduction, I present to you:
The Ginger with all the Gifts
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. Never was this truth more plain than during the recent attacks at Orchard Slope in which a household of six was slaughtered and consumed by a horde of the living dead.* It would have been just five dead, but unfortunately for her, Aunt Josephine had escaped the hordes invading Charlottetown and had arrived the day prior to the attack. Avonlea proving to be no safer than town.
Mrs Rachel was sitting at her kitchen window one afternoon. The sun was coming in at the window warm and bright; the orchard on the slope below the house was in a bridal flush of pinky white bloom, hummed over by a myriad of bees.
Here was Matthew Cuthbert at half past three on the afternoon of a busy day driving over the hollow and up the hill, with Marilla riding shotgun. Now where were the Cuthbert's going and why were they going there?** Since Marilla had left too, there was no answer for Mrs Rachel that day, which vexed her to no end.
On the buggy, Marilla was keeping an eagle eye out for trouble, her shotgun was primed, and the safety was off. If trouble came, she might not have any warning. Marilla was a tall, thin woman with angles and without curves; her dark hair showed some gray streaks and was always twisted up in a hard, little knot behind with two wire hairpins stuck aggressively through it, she didn't have time for flyaway hair in these benighted times.
After an uneventful journey Matthew drove the buggy through the barricade at Bright River Station and parked it in the stable. It was safe in the compound there and they both walked down to the station to find their new charge. They had sent word to the Hopetown Asylum via Mrs Spencer that they needed a little boy to help out around the place. When Marilla enquired of the Stationmaster, he informed them that the small red headed girl they had passed on the platform was waiting for them. "A girl? We haven't come for any girl, it is a boy that we asked for." retorted Marilla most indignantly.
"Well I don't have any spare boys hereabouts." The stationmaster replied impatiently. "She got off the station and said that you would come to fetch her."
"Well this is a pretty pass, what good would a girl be to us, Matthew? We need a boy to help us out at home. A girl will be useless."
"I suppose we had better go and talk to her Marilla. See where the mix up occurred."
Marilla nodded "I suppose so."
They walked out to the platform to find a child of about eleven, garbed in a very short, very tight, very ugly dress of yellowing-gray wincey. She wore a hat and beneath the hat extending down her back were two braids of very thick decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin and much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes which looked green in some light and moods and gray in others.**
"I suppose you are the Cuthberts come to fetch me." Said the little girl.
"Well now, there seems to have been a mistake, we have come for a boy. A girl would be no use to us."
The girl looked from one to the other with her big green eyes and promptly asserted that she was as good as any boy, better even. "I'm an excellent shot and very nimble."
"I don't understand, were there no boys at the asylum?" Marilla questioned as though she had not heard Anne speak.
"No there were not. All the boys have been snatched up. Us girls are just as good, better even, but folks are determined that boys are more useful. I'm just as handy as a boy, as you will see Miss Cuthbert."
"Well Marilla, what do you think? Shall we give her a trial?" Matthew suggested.
"I suppose we had better, we can't leave her here and she may prove useful about the place. Come along girl, what is your name by the way?"
"Will you please call me One Shot Cordelia?"
"Call you Cordelia? Is that your name?"
"Well no, not exactly."
"What is your name then?"
"Anne Shirley, but if you call me Anne, please be sure to spell it with an E. Anne with an E is a much more dignified name."**
"Very well then Anne with an E, come this way to the buggy. I don't suppose you have a gun of your own?"
"No, all the guns were needed at the asylum."
"No matter, we have a spare one."
I'm sure you're wondering what version of Prince Edward Island Anne has landed in? Marilla riding shotgun, Anne being a good shot, barricades and an overriding sense of doom? North America has been overrun with flesh eating zombies, usually referred to as Unmentionables. Friends and neighbours have been infected with the virus and the only way to stop them is to blow their heads off. This explains why there are no boys available at the asylum. In fact, one good aspect of the apocalypse in general, is that orphanages are emptying out, as young children are plucked from them to defend homes. The Cuthberts were lucky to secure the assistance of Anne.
The journey home was more action packed than the way there. Anne was about to christen The Avenue, The White Way of Delight, but the masses of Unmentionables hiding behind the trees soon put any romantic notions out of her head. Marilla and Anne blew the heads off a few lumbering bodies and they arrived home at Green Gables safely soon enough. As Matthew put the horse away in the barn, Marilla showed Anne to her room. "You proved yourself quite handy there, Anne. Thank you for your help. Certainly, an extra gun comes in handy. We find night time the busy time, is it like that at the asylum?"
"Yes Miss Cuthbert."
Of course, the problem with night time zombie raids was the lack of light. A full moon on this night made it easier. On the perimeter Marilla hefted her shotgun and fired it at Mr Philips, blowing his head right off.
"Good shot Miss Cuthbert." Anne said admiringly, before she saw another one in her sights and fired both barrels into their brain.
"I believe that was Miss Josie Pye," commented Marilla. She would have been about your age. Marilla wiped a wisp of hair out of her eyes before glancing at Anne approvingly. "Nice work." Both women brandished their firearms as they stood side by side, casting their eyes around for the next Unmentionable to stumble their way. "So, Anne tell me about yourself, where did you get to be such a good shot?"
"Well the asylum was besieged on all sides, so we had plenty of target practice. We didn't have nearly as nice guns as these though."
"Call me Marilla, Anne, anyone with your skills deserves that." She hefted her gun and casually blew the brains out of an Unmentionable about fifty yards away. She wasn't sure who it was.
Over the course of the next few days Marilla introduced Anne to the remaining Avonlea townsfolk. Mr Gilbert Blythe was a neighbour, Gilbert was a good looking boy with dark hair and sparkling eyes. He proved himself a good shot and was admiring of Anne's prowess. They became quite the team, each of them having almost a sixth sense about the whereabouts of Unmentionables. It got to be a bit of a game for them, shooting an Unmentionable through the eye was good fun. For his part Gilbert found the redheaded Anne good company; she wasn't squeamish as some of the girls tended to be.
She was pleased to make Ruby Gillis's acquaintance. Ruby was not a particularly good shot. Her skill lay in remaking shotgun cartridges. Sure, she could blow a head off if an Unmentionable was close by, but for a long range shot she was next to useless. It was rather dangerous to leave it to the last minute. If you did that you were liable to get bitten, or worse eaten; though if she stopped to think about it, Anne wasn't sure what was worse. The girls built themselves a tree house in between their two houses, which they christened Ildewood. It proved to be the perfect place to clean guns and for Ruby to make cartridges.
Approximately half the Avonlea townsfolk had been infected and were now lumbering, flesh eating, idiots. The rest were defending their homes as best they could. Unmentionables were not fast, and they were not intelligent. What they lacked in speed, however, they made up in stamina. Sure, you could outrun an Unmentionable in the short term, but if you didn't find your way to safety, or a gun, it would eventually run you down and then you were a gonna. It was odds on whether they ate you; or bit you. If you were eaten then, well, you were eaten, but if you were bitten, the wound would soon become infected. It would kill you and you would be reanimated shortly afterwards with an insatiable appetite. Brains seemed to be their meal of choice, for that is all they said; "Brains, Brains…" they would growl. In fact, if the night was too dark, it would be this that would alert you to their presence.
The Unmentionable invasion pretty much ruined everyone's social calendar. Church dances were a thing of the past. The worst aspect from Marilla Cuthbert's point of view was the mess. Unmentionables strewn about the place in various states of ambulation, and undress made the property look scruffy, and that would never do. She had to live with it, though her fingers were itching to tidy the perimeter when next she got a chance.
"Braaaaiiiiinnnnnsssss, braaaaiiiiinnnnssss" could be heard over the breeze signaling another attack.
"Hey look Marilla it's that Mrs Blewett. She looks pretty awful." Indeed, it looked as though Mrs Blewett had been bitten quite some time ago and had somehow dodged detection until now. Her jaw was hanging half off, and one eye was hanging by a tendon. Her skirts were bedraggled and her left foot kept tripping over them, not quite enough to make her fall over, but enough to slow her down. "I never did like that woman, but I guess I never felt even she deserved this fate." Matthew remarked. Hoisting her rifle to her shoulder Marilla let loose a shot and blew Mrs Blewett away through her remaining eye. They watched as she crumpled into a small hump surrounded by skirts. The remaining unmentionables were unmoved by the loss of their companion.
"Phew, Marilla. Remind me never to get on your wrong side." Matthew commented in admiration.
In Boston Mass., Dr Mary Parkman*** was working feverishly on a vaccination for the zombie menace. It appeared that the virus was transmitted via saliva; and was thankfully not airborne. The infection period was approximately six hours, sometimes less. People had learnt to kill their loved ones as soon as they were bitten, as within the day the infected would turn.
Dr Parkman and her team in Boston worked on solving the major epidemics of the day. Cholera, typhoid, malaria were their normal bread and butter. This zombie epidemic was proving more difficult and was far more urgent than the rest put together. Viewed under a microscope the virus did not behave as other viruses did. The scientists had to wear more stringent safety gear and they had lost a couple of staff members already. Mary had guns at the ready should they be needed and unfortunately, they had been.
One day Mary was intrigued to watch a simple chlorine wash, which shouldn't be effective in any way, kill off the zombie virus almost immediately. Concerned that it was a fluke, though goodness knows nothing else had had that effect, she tried it again. Pouring the virus into a test tube****, she inserted a syringe with the chlorine wash and watched in fascination as the lively virus particles stopped their frenzied activity and become inert. Time and again she repeated the experiment, each time with the same result. When one of her colleagues turned up she turned to him and asked him to repeat the experiment. The result was the same. "I think we may have solved it."
He looked at her "Dr Parkman, you may just have saved the human race!"
They worked feverishly to determine the best way to turn the chlorine into a safe vaccination for healthy subjects. Unfortunately, it couldn't cure the zombies, it would just kill them.
Six months later
Life had pretty much got back to normal at Green Gables. Matthew and Marilla decided to adopt Anne to thank her for all her help during the unmentionable crisis. It didn't seem fair to send her back to the asylum.
People had discovered that under the right circumstances the Unmentionables could be put to work on menial tasks. In the big cities they were working in factories. They were cheap labour, they didn't complain; just so long as you threw them a chunk of meat every once in a while. Like most farmers Matthew had taken the opportunity to hire two to help around the place, they helped with the plowing and fed the stock. Marilla even used their labour in the house, where once they had caused mess, now they cleaned it up. They grew used to hearing them groaning as they went about their duties, in a way it was almost comforting.
Life never got back to normal, and the death rate had been high. There were some positives, the ladies had developed some excellent marksmanship skills; after all every cloud had a silver lining.
* Misquoted from Anne of Green Gables
** Misquoted from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
*** Mary Parkman is a creation of Elizasky. Check out her Within a Forest Dark to find out more about this amazing woman.
**** I'm no chemist, work with me here.
If you like the idea of Geraldine James packing heat, I recommend the UK production, Utopia. In her first scene she fires a Glock into someone's brain. She's really rather marvellous. Utopia is available on Apple TV if you are outside the UK.