Post-Apocalyptic Barbie

3

As Mark drove through the once happy, peaceful streets of Brighton, he quickly found there wasn't a safe place left in his hometown. In every neighborhood they went through, there was always one of them. The undead creatures clawed at doors and windows. They repeatedly bumped into parked cars, and then attacked the motionless vehicles, biting and scraping them as if they were prey. It wasn't uncommon to see a whole group of them surrounding a car, trying to eat it.

Under any normal circumstances, he supposed, it might've been funny to watch. In fact, if it had been a movie, he'd probably comment on how stupid they all looked, and how shitty the make-up was. But this wasn't a stupid horror film he was watching comfortably from his own couch. This was real life, and these were real people. They still looked like real people.

Well, some did. Most of the zombies now had flesh hanging from them, pink muscles beneath shining through, dried blood staining almost every inch of their clothes. He could see much more than he wanted to thanks to streetlights and porch lamps. 

It was almost overwhelming to take in, and Mark kept expecting himself to wake up. Any minute. In the hotel bed. Karla snuggled up next to him beneath the covers. Nothing to worry about. Just—

“Are you following the speed limit?” Barbie leaned over to check his speedometer. She let out a harsh laugh.

“No,” Mark said, stepping down on the gas.

                                                                             ∞

“So this is it?”

“Yeah,” Mark said as they pulled into the driveway of 1025 Cascade Circle, right up next to an old rundown minivan which was currently being gnawed on by three zombies. One raised its head and, upon seeing fresh metal, dragged itself over to the front of Mark's truck. Its face was swollen and red, short black hair hanging over its blank-expression eyes. He could tell it'd been a girl once. Beneath the stain of blood and dirt, he could make out dull glitter and what looked like the word “Princess” on the creature's shirt. 

“Any of them your parents?”

Mark forced himself to look. The zombies were so horribly disfigured, he could hardly tell. One of them looked like it was wearing a watch, not unlike the one his dad was always fond of, but—

“No,” he said. “My parents aren't there.”

Barbie flashed him a manic kind of smile and, with crowbar in hand, she flung open the truck door. She didn't waste any time laying waste to the zombies. Mark stared straight ahead at the door to his house, trying to ignore the  agonized moans and the sickening noise of metal against bone.

As soon as she took care of the creature trying to eat his headlight, Barbie threw herself up on the hood of the truck and pounded the windshield. “Hey,” she said. “Hey, you. Let's go. Mommy and daddy want a snack.”

Mark swallowed the argument creeping up his throat. As much as he wanted to go off on her, he knew he couldn't. She was the one with the weapon. She was the one who seemed to be prepared for all this. He pocketed his keys and hopped out of the truck, slamming the door behind him.

As they walked up the short walkway to the house, Barbie asked, “Did your dad like guns?”

Mark made a face. She'd used past tense. “Yeah,” he said, opening up the screen door. “He likes hunting and stuff.”

“Right,” Barbie said. She slapped his wrist as he went to turn the doorknob. “Ring the doorbell first. Or knock.”

“Why?”