D. Walker - The Snacking Dead

T he car was missing,and the spare key was gone from its hiding place. The thought of Ronnie driving Earl away was both a huge relief and terrifying. Ronnie wasn’t old enough to drive, no matter what her ex-husband thought.

She knew they’d be hungry. She filled a duffel bag with kitchen tools and food that would keep, tucked the cleaver in her belt, then watched and waited. Once the biter herd in the street thinned, she crept with her cargo from the door to her neighbor’s driveway.

She tried her neighbor’s blue minivan. The car alarm made her jump and she dropped the bag. The biters swerved to follow the noise. She’d have to come back for it.

A biter in running shorts stood slurping between her and a truck across the street. As she made for the truck the walker struggled to keep up. He shambled far too slowly to stay with her.

As a girl Pam had run free all over the mountains near her home. That’s how she met Daryl, out shooting squirrel for his dinner. He had been going to eat the thing raw. She had thought with a little effort she could make it better. She’d asked him to show her how to butcher the critter. He’d put her hand at the bottom of the hatchet handle so she could get leverage. She had found she liked butchering it.

It wasn’t that different with the cleaver. The biter in running gear slowly hobbled toward her.

She held the cleaver like a hatchet, waited until he got close, then calmly plunged it into his frontal lobe. Runners annoyed her.

She managed to open the truck door, twisted the key in the ignition, and yelped as an insipid jingle blared from a loudspeaker on top of the truck.

Attracted by the ear-piercing racket, biters stumbled out from all around and began clawing and thumping at the sides of the vehicle.

She had commandeered an ice cream truck.

serves 8

1 pint premium ice cream, in any flavor you like, softened

1½ cups self-rising flour (or use 1½ cups all-purpose flour mixed with 2 teaspoons baking powder and ½ teaspoon salt)

1 pint premium ice cream, in any flavor complementary to your first flavor (vanilla goes with everything), slightly softened

1 Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8- or 9-inch loaf pan and line with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper.

2 In a large bowl, whisk the softened ice cream until smooth. Stir in the flour until just combined. Pour the mixture into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let pan cool on a wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes, unmold the loaf from the pan, and then let cool completely on the rack.

3 Slice the bread into ½-inch pieces and make sandwiches with the remaining ice cream. Freeze for at least 20 minutes before serving.

When the power grid is down, mobile engine-powered refrigeration will keep vital food fresh—for as long as you can find diesel to siphon.

“M eat is murder, you know.”

Trey looked up from his plate of FEMA mystery meat at the girl in a black hoodie with a skull silkscreened on the front.

“Tell that to the douchebags who ate my delivery guy,” he said, pushing his plate back on the school cafeteria table.

The girl scooped a chip into a Tupperware tub of guacamole. She frowned and passed the chip to a boy sitting next to her. She had her arm draped awkwardly around his shoulders.

“You didn’t get that stuff here,” he said.

“Obviously,” she said. “It’s totally vegan. Made it before we came. Is that your shovel?”

“It’s called a pizza peel.”

“Do you bake, or fight with your shovel?”

“Both. Works quiet, never runs out of ammo.”

“You killed some, didn’t you.”

“They were already dead.”

The girl reflected for a moment. “I locked my babysitter in a closet.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“She caught a fever and woke up all angry and flesh-eating. My brother lured her into the pantry with my gerbil Ossie as bait.”

She glared at the boy, but kept him in her protective embrace.

“I’m making for Fort Benning,” he said. “Army’s there, it should be safe.”

“That’s OK. I’m driving us to my dad’s place in Griffin in my mother’s car. She’s missing.”

Trey nodded gravely. Jesus, this child ain’t old enough to drive.

“OK, then,” he said. “How about a caravan? Guess Griffin’s on my way. Safety in numbers and whatnot.”

She looked him in the face for the first time. “You going to protect us with your peel ?” She handed him a chip.

“I don’t guess you need much saving,” he said as he stood up.

“Truth is,” she almost whispered, “I never felt so alive.”

serves 6

4 ripe avocado, halved and pitted

¾ teaspoon salt, or more to taste

Juice of ½ lime, or more to taste

2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro

1 scallion, white and green parts, minced

1 jalapeno pepper, seeds and veins removed, minced

Few drops hot sauce, optional

Corn chips, for serving

Using a spoon, scoop the avocado flesh into a bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and smash forcefully with a fork, leaving the mixture a little chunky. Taste and correct seasonings, adding more salt and/or lime juice as needed. Serve with chips.

A vegetable-based diet is likely to become more attractive when you think about why the living dead find you so delicious.

Y ou had to admit,she’d been killing it these past few days.

She’d, what, like saved her annoying little brother from a cannibal babysitter, driven her mom’s car like a NASCAR superstar, and whipped up a batch of vegan hummus from crappy cafeteria supplies. Now she stood shoulder to shoulder with the dozen or so survivors who hadn’t turned or fled, against an advancing pack of the living dead. And there was no one there to say she couldn’t. LOL

She considered what might be the humane way to kill a walker. She had swiped a long bread knife from the school kitchen. The slurping mob of biters was pushing hard against the perimeter fence around the FEMA center. Trey raised his pizza shovel. The fence bowed inward. I so got this .

“When’s Mom coming?” her brother asked. She had stopped even answering days ago. She squeezed his shoulder and tried to smile. He gave her the side-eye, then ran inside the school.

A section of the fence gave way and toppled like an avalanche of sleighbells. At the same moment there came a racket of demented chimes from down the block. The walkers swerved toward the loud noise. WTF?

Trey raised an eyebrow as an ice cream truck rounded the corner, loudspeaker blaring. Out from the ridiculous truck jumped a woman in a blood-covered apron, and she started splitting walker heads like canned chickpeas with a hatchet. Or wait—was it a cleaver?