Shambling in a Winter Wonderland is a serial adventure story from Karina Fabian, one of Liberty Island’s favorite authors. The story features her badass character Neeta Lyffe, whose earlier adventures can be found in novels Neeta Lyffe, Zombie Exterminator and I Left My Brains in San Francisco. Shambling follows Neeta and her fiance as they take what is supposed to be a vacation to a Utah ski resort, but zombies, a blizzard, and a startling revelation about Neeta’s past all converge to make this trip anything but relaxing…


*
After a brief argument that ended when she swung her walker at them, Grandma LinnAnn had bullied the two men who’d come to save her into taking positions around the zombie instead. People had stopped screaming, but yelled out useless encouragement: "Go for the eyes!" "Take out its knees!" "Get away!"
The blow dryer at its feet had cycled through its warning in Spanish and was now complaining about water in the nozzle. "To clean this appliance, we recommend B-to-Z appliance wipes. From Bacteria to Zombies, nothing gets the job done like B-to-Z. Learn more at…"
Kevin was stammering over the loudspeaker, but seemed to have forgotten what he was trying to say. Idiot boy! What had happened to him? She remembered when he bought his first joint from her. He was such a sharp kid then; only 12 and talking about becoming a geneticist. If she weren’t so against GMOs, she’d have been tempted to ask him about developing some new strains. Now, he couldn’t even remember the impending zombie attack.
That was it! She wasn’t selling him another joint again, even if he was her best customer and had it covered under the Government Mint plan. He was a white male–she didn’t need a reason to refuse his patronage.
The helicopter was getting closer, its blades kicking up a breeze and splattering water and snow. Who was that idiot behind the controls, anyway?
The zombie that had been her grandson had freed its torso and one knee and had finally gotten enough sense to hack away at the ice with its fists.
They needed help–real help, not an old woman and two guys with poles. Where was that California exterminator? The one from that show…?
"Neeta Lyffe! I need Neeta Lyffe!" LinnAnn hollered. She saw someone run into the lodge and another person start dialing his phone. She hoped it was for her sake. In the meantime, what was that talk show she’d seen with Neeta’s mom, Carol? Oh, yeah: Zombies keep the habits they made in life even in death.
"Boy, what do you think you’re doing?" She had to yell to be heard over the chopper. "That’s my best grass, and you aren’t even enjoying it. If you love your Grandma LinnAnn, you’ll stay still and take a good puff. Come on, show Granny how you do it French."
"Are you nuts?" one of the guys yelled, but the zombie stopped tearing at the ice around its legs and took a deep drag. Smoke came out of the hole in its neck, but if even with the chopper kicking up a breeze, it managed to get some back into its nose.
"That’s right. It pays to recycle!"
The intercom squeaked as Kevin cleared his throat. "Yeah, so, anyway, um, get away from the snowman-person-thing. It’s total zombie. They’d like everyone indoors, so we’re going to have a sale on our nachos…"
"Naaachos!" Zombie Ethan broke free of ice and shambled toward the snack bar…and Grandma LinnAnn.
*
"Nachos?" Neeta squawked. "We have a zombie who died toking, and you told them to announce nachos?"
Altimeter’s replied with asperity. "We had to do something. Who doesn’t like nachos? I’m as close as I can get. Wind’s picking up. I’ll hold as steady as I can."
Mandy stood in front of her, tightening the last buckle on the rescue harness they had in the chopper. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Have I got a choice?"
Mandy walked behind her, gave the clip on her back a yank to make sure it was secure, and called to Benjy to open the door.
Cold air blasted against her. She welcomed it. It soothed her nausea, and maybe everyone would take her wince as a reaction to the cold and not to fear. Phantom pressure on her calf and arms reminded her that just a few hours ago, she’d been hanging from a ski lift with a mostly intact shambler trying to climb up her leg.
Forget that. You’ve got a job to do. She stepped to the open door and looked down to gauge her descent. Altimeter Brown really was a good pilot; they hovered so that she could descend behind the zombie. It had freed itself of the ice, but had tangled its feet in an electrical cord. As it kicked about, trying to dislodge the cord, two men poked at it with ski poles, but they made a weak defense. Between the zombie and the snack bar, the old woman stood her ground, her walker before her. Neeta thought she was shouting, but she couldn’t hear anything over the chopper.
There were not enough cuss words in the English language for this job. To distract herself, she started reciting every profanity she could think of in German–they sounded suitably vicious with the right emphasis, no matter what they meant.
She stepped off the chopper.
*
Zombie Ethan had gotten his foot caught on the dryer cord, which voiced new protests. "Please unplug at the socket. Pulling at the cord can cause damage that can result in injury or death. For more information, tweet the California Department of Safety using hashtag…"
"Look!" a woman yelled. "Someone’s jumping out of the chopper!"
Grandma chanced a look up. No, someone was being lowered out of the helicopter. What kind of idiot? Or was that…
The person activated something in her hand, and a long ray of light emitted from the handle. It wobbled before steadying into a straight blade.
Oh, thank heavens! It was her. It was Neeta Lyffe!
Others realized it, too. People started to jump and cheer. Neeta waved. Really? Hamming it up? Her mother was never like that. But she was yelling something, too.
A moan drew LinnAnn’s attention back to the zombie. It was almost on her.
She hefted her walker and swung hard.
*
"Ficken esel bruchbude!*" Did those words even make sense together? Neeta had expected to drop and swing once she was off the chopper floor, but instead, she lowered relatively smoothly. One thing to go right in a huge vacation of wrong. She didn’t waste any more breath on swears or thanks, but made sure her sword pointed away from herself and her cable before powering it on. The monofilament flopped in the wind caused by the rotors and she had a horrifying moment of fear that it would arch her way and slice her, but as the electric field took hold, it steadied into a straight line. She was going to give Wolfe Swords the best endorsement ever if she survived this!
Meanwhile, the crowd was pointing at her. She could hear the cheers even over the chopper. How stupid were these people? It wasn’t a show! She waved her sword and shouted, "Get inside!"
Then, the zombie freed its leg from the cord and started toward the old woman.
"Ficken kamel knacker**! Tim! Get me down there! Lower me faster!"
A rush of wind knocked the chopper just as Neeta was in the middle of another swear word and sent her swinging toward the zombie.
*
Grandma LinnAnn’s legs might have been weak, but hours a day of harvesting and rolling her own had given her a fair amount of arm strength. Her walker connected with her zombie grandson’s jaw with a smack she felt up to her elbows. The joint flew out of his mouth, along with some teeth and a fair amount of his skin. He staggered to the side.
LinnAnn backed away. Her foot slipped on the ice, and she fell hard. Her head smacked against the step. She saw stars, and when her vision cleared, she was looking into the half-torn face of the zombie, and any resemblance to her happy, high grandson was gone.
She raised her walker, but it smacked it from her hands. She gave her last defense one fleeting glance as it slid from her reach. No way could she stand and run, even crawling up the steps would just bring her closer to the zombie’s mouth. She went with the only weapon she had. "Boy! Did you lose that joint? Go find it! Go find your joint."
"Munchies," it moaned. "Braaains."
She closed her eyes. What a horrible way to go–and in Slopeton, Utah, no less! She could see the headlines: "Local marijuana dealer eaten to death by zombiefied druggie grandson." Utahans wouldn’t understand. If she weren’t going to die, she’d die of embarrassment. Well, at least it was family…
Then she heard Neeta Lyffe roaring like a Valkyrie. A buzz and a plop.
She opened her eyes a crack. The zombie lay on its side twitching as it tried to make its body obey its commands. She caught a whiff of burning flesh and saw smoke coming from its back. Neeta must have severed its spine. She opened her eyes fully and pushed up the steps away from it.
Neeta was still swinging lightly, but as LinnAnn watched, she hit a release on her rigging and dropped the last few feet, slipping on the melted but refreezing snow, yet catching her balance before she toppled over. She walked to the struggling zombie, reactivating her sword. With a clean swipe, she cut off its head.
There was a moment of silence save the ever-present chopper. Then the crowd erupted into thunderous cheers.
Neeta leaned forward, bracing her hands against her knees as she caught her breath. A few pants, and she shook herself and fetched the walker. She set it in front of LinnAnn and extended her hand to help her up. "Are you all right?"
LinnAnn found herself so shaky and weak, she could barely keep standing even with the walker. Nonetheless, old habits took hold. "Oh, I’ll be fine, dearie, but you look stressed. Maybe you could use something to relax you? I take all insurances."
*
Neeta turned down the woman’s offer of "discounted relaxants–high grade," but she had to admit, she was still shaking inside. Zombies be damned, it was the dangling from great heights that would make her quit this job. She worked off the excess adrenalin helping clean up the site, but decontamination meant she had to strip and shower outdoors. Even with hot water and a heater blowing into the little tent they set up behind the lodge, she was shivering by the time she got out, and the paper-thin temp clothes and plastic booties the Z-mat team supplied her with didn’t help. Mandy met her outside the tent with a change of clothes from Neeta’s room, a blanket, gloves, and some snow boots. They still had the tag.
"Tim wants you in his office ASAP." She handed her the boots like they were a peace offering.
Neeta didn’t get her hesitation, but she didn’t care. The boots looked warm as well as cute, and they fit perfectly. She put the clothes on over the paper outfit and draped the blanket over her head. In addition to being warmer, it helped hide her identity as they crossed the hangout area, which was filled with worried skiers munching nachos and discussing the zombie snowman. A few had joints, and she thought she caught a whiff of nutmeg in the smoke.
Her phone rang as they entered the hall. Ted. She used her chattering teeth to pull off a glove so she could swipe it to answer. "Babe, are you okay?" she asked.
"Okay? I just saw your rescue on TV. How can I be okay, when I’m here and you’re over there doing, doing that!"
His voice was strangled and hoarse. She didn’t know if that was good or bad. "Babe, trust me, I would never have done that if I could have avoided it."
"I know–but you did! Do you have any idea how sexy you are? You pegged the hot meter! Maybe it’s just as well I’m stuck here because if I could see you now, morphine or not, there’d be no waiting until we’re married."
Neeta burst out laughing, but Ted continued, his tone earnest. "I mean it, Boss. I have never been so turned on in my life. I wish I could… Are you alone?"
Something in the way he asked that gave her jelly-legs. "I’m in the elevator. With my sister. The minister. And we’re heading to Brown’s office."
"Call me when you’re alone." And he hung up.
She pulled her phone away so she could see his icon smiling back at her. She wasn’t cold anymore.
Mandy leaned toward her, looking at the phone. "Oh, was it Ted? What’d he want? Is he feeling better?"
"Mandy," she found herself asking, "how long does it take to get a marriage license in Utah?"
Mandy squealed and threw her arms around Neeta. This time, Neeta didn’t want to protest. She hugged back and even hopped up and down with her half-sister. It was going to happen! She was going to marry Ted!
The doors opened, and Mandy left her to see Altimeter while she made some phone calls to friends she had at the courthouse. "We’ll get the license through fast. Don’t you worry. This isn’t my first quickie wedding!"
Neeta didn’t know how to respond to that, so she just gave her a wave and headed to Tim Brown’s office, her feet hardly touching the floor.
Brown scowled at her from across his desk, flanked by a nervous lodge manager and a harried event organizer. Captain Lars of Z-Mat leaned against the wall, his arms crossed, his face set in a way she recognized from the mirror. Only his professionalism was keeping him from strangling someone. She hoped it wasn’t her. He caught her glance and his mouth twitched in a sympathetic smile. She relaxed just a bit. She needed Z-Mat on her side.
Altimeter harrumphed as if to say it was about time she decided to join them. "I hope you’re happy. We have people checking out by the dozens. The only reason my lodge isn’t empty is because Z-Mat has us on lockdown until they’re sure the scene is secure."
Neeta was liking the Salt Lake Z-Mat more every day. Competent and careful, despite their lack of practical experience. "I didn’t bring your zombies in, Altimeter, and my fiance and I have put ourselves in significant danger to take them out for you."
"What’s that catch phrase of yours? Part of the job?"
She resisted the urge to lean over the desk and smack Brown across the face, like she’d promised earlier. It didn’t matter that she didn’t have a zombie arm to do it with. Her own would feel just as satisfying. "Which you’ve done your best to limit for fear of spooking your guests."
"Well, you’ve done an admirable job of that, haven’t you?" His voice dripped sarcasm, but before she could snark back, he continued with the attack. "That snowman has been there for days, yet you never thought to check it out unobtrusively."
"I’m from Southern California! I should be suspicious of a snowman that everyone had been playing with for hours?" Nonetheless, her reply held an edge of guilt. That Z-Mat rookie had noticed something off about the snowman. She’d even been about to check when another zombie took their attention, and then Ted–
Ted! Suddenly, the horror of the morning flooded over her, and she felt herself shaking again. "My fiance nearly died today. We are not skiers. We’ve never exterminated under these conditions. We have never come across zombies so actively mobile. Zombies usually go dormant in the cold. Nothing about this job is ordinary. I’ll be writing a letter to your governor praising your Z-Mat team for the incredible job it’s done so far because, without them, a lot of people would probably be dead and turned by now, but don’t you dare discount the work Ted and I have done."
Captain Lars chimed in. "It was Ted’s idea to set traps, and Neeta’s to draw them in with the cameras, then the ski lifts. We may have done more kills today, but they supplied the tactics and experience."
Altimeter closed his eyes as if seeking patience dealing with an obstinate and stupid customer. "None of which negates the fact that the ski contest is tomorrow, we still have one zombie terrorizing my slopes, and the competitors and spectators want to leave."
"But, sir," the manager cut in. "We are getting calls from people wanting to know if we have vacancies and from people wanting to attend the event. Neeta’s rescue made national news."
Neeta had had plenty of experience with zombie fans who thought rekilling should be a spectator sport. Wasn’t that what drove Dave to create Zombie Death Extreme? For that matter, the ZDE fandom probably accounted for a lot of the hotel’s calls.
Altimeter had a gleam in his eye.
Neeta held up her hands to ward off his next thoughts. "You can’t bring those people in. Don’t turn this into a sideshow."
"I don’t think that’s your concern any longer. We’ll have a check for you at the front desk tomorrow morning for services rendered, but all things considered, you’ll probably be more comfortable in a hotel in Ogden, closer to your fiance."
Her stomach sank. "There’re still zombies out there."
"One zombie, I’m told."
"That we know of," the captain chimed in, desperation mixed with anger in his voice. "We’re still running missing persons checks. Besides, it’s Tom Spars. He’s going to be impossible to catch. Good as my team is, we need Neeta’s help."
"I’m sure you can hire her in some advisory role, but I don’t want her on my slopes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have damage control to attend to." Altimeter turned his back on them, set his tablet on his lap and started talking to Peterson. The event organizer stood blinking helplessly until Brown snapped his name, and like a Googledroid, he started answering questions.
Neeta stormed out of the room, Captain Lars on her heels. He slammed the door hard enough to make the wall shake. "Neeta, consider yourself hired. This isn’t done!"
A few minutes later, Neeta’s suite door also closed with a satisfying slam. She stormed into Ted’s room to pack his things first. Ted! She promised to call him back, when she was alone. Of course, Altimeter Brown had to ruin her amorous mood. Still, if anyone could bring it back, it was Ted.
When he didn’t answer his cell, she called his room and got the nurse. "He was overexcited by something he was watching, so we gave him a sedative. Would you like to leave a message?"
Neeta was pretty certain she’d hung up before she howled in rage. What else could happen?
The phone rang again: "C is for Choice" by Rainbow Over Sesame Street.
She slid her thumb over the screen as she composed her voice into a semblance of calm. "Roscoe, hi. Listen, I’m not in the mood for chit-chat."
"Oh, gawd! No truer words, I’m sure. I saw the news footage on the BO Network. I flipped on just as they’d finished the details, but I saw you on the slopes. I had to wait though a whole diatribe about how this totally proves Global Warming was right all along, but anyway–is it true? It’s Slay Bells?"
She put the phone on speaker so she could start packing Ted’s stuff. His suitcases were still half packed, and the rest of his outfits lay strewn on the floor and dresser. "Most of them are down now, but yeah, that was the team. We’ve got one left. He’s wily."
Roscoe squealed like a crazed fangirl. "Is it Tom Spars? Oh, gawd, of course it is. You couldn’t stop that man when he was alive."
"You knew him?" Roscoe may have been one of the contestants on her show, but he’d been a plant, a Hollywood actor who got hired to stir things up, take points from the others, get people to love and hate him, and make a dramatic departure in the finale. As such, he connected with a wide range of people, but skiers?
"Oh, gawd, yes. I’m a big fan of the sport, and let’s just say Tom and his wife didn’t limit their adventures to the slopes, shall we? But never mind the gossip! Girl, you are not going to catch him by conventional means, not while he’s skiing."
The simple act of folding clothes soothed Neeta’s nerves, despite the fact that they were going into a suitcase a week early. As her anger cooled, her mind returned to the problem. She wouldn’t leave the Z-Mat team to handle this themselves, even if they hadn’t hired her. "Okay. Suggestions for traps? Z-Mat got a couple that way."
"Not Tommy. There’s not an obstacle he can’t overcome, and if he does fail, he’ll rage quit. I do mean rage. I saw him miss a jump once, and he came back around and took it out. He threw his poles at the guy that tried to stop him. He even bit the branch off a tree before they could calm him down. It disturbed me, and you know how I feel about passionate expression. If you trap him and miss, it will not be pretty."
"We tried to take them out on the lifts, but he’s not riding them."
"He had special skis with some kind of thrust assist. They were amazing. You could ski uphill. And indestructible–like titanium or something. I remember reading that right after he died, they searched for his skis, you know, in case they came off in the avalanche. Omigosh! You think he still had them–and they’re still working?"
Neeta closed Ted’s suitcase and walked to the sliding doors to peer out at the slopes. The sun had set so quickly! The moon bathed snow in a blue light. The lodge had all the lights off to discourage anyone going out. She saw stars, thicker than she’d ever seen before; a wide swath of the Milky Way shone soft like a moth’s wing between two trees. It should have taken her breath away, but all she could think about was a zombie on hoverboard skis blasting uphill. "Maybe. They’d have to be able to take the snow and cold, and if they stayed on his feet. Roscoe, I’m out of my element. Any ideas?"
Roscoe hummed in thought. "He’s good, but he’s a glory hound. He always had to be first, always the best. Always on top, if you know what I mean. What an ego. And he was such a lech, but he always cleared things with Muchelle. Such a gentleman, that way. Other guys would be all over the trophy girl, while he was busy mugging it up for the cameras and waving his trophy in everyone’s face. But he’d be checking her out, and if he liked what he saw… Oh, girl, there was this one time with this buff blonde… You’d think he hadn’t noticed her, but that night in the lodge…"
She thought she saw movement in the distance, but she couldn’t tell. Roscoe’s gossip became a buzzing in her ears. She cut him off. "Roscoe, you know I can’t get him into the lodge! Do you have anything helpful?"
"Sorry, Neeta. That’s all I’ve know…but there is something I can give you! It was supposed to be for your wedding shower. Kind of a gag gift, though after San Francisco, I think you’ll find it handy. Besides, Ted might like it. I think there’s some hidden friskiness in that man."
"Roscoe!"
He chuckled. "That’s okay. You don’t have to tell me, unless you want to. Anyway, it might fit under your ski clothes better than that hazmat suit you have. I’ll drone it to you, and you can have it in the morning."
"Okay." Her eyes strained, and she was starting to get a headache. The last of her adrenalin was burning off. She let the curtain drop. "So, are you going to tell me what it is, or is it a surprise?"
"You can’t guess? Transparent Kevlar, of course!"
*
Neeta chased the zombie down a slope called "Six Fingers." Her board hovered over a wave of snow, making it operate more like a surfboard. Finally, something she could handle with confidence! The transparent Kevlar suit fit perfectly under the white ski suit the ghost of her biological father gave her as a wedding gown. It kept her warm despite the winds from her impossibly fast pursuit. Even so, Spars stayed stubbornly just ahead of her.
"You can’t win!" she screamed at it. "Just rage quit! Bite a tree so I can slice your head off!"
"Dude, are you threatening the environment? Not cool." A tube of moonlit snow opened up beside Neeta. Bergie surfed through. One of his hands skimmed the snow, causing a splash of rainbow slush. The other held his decapitated head before him so that the wind could ruffle his sun-bleached hair.
Neeta’d had it. With a shriek of fury, she lifted her knees and twisted, bringing the board down edge first into the snow, perpendicular to the slope. She drew sparks and she slid to a stop, her body facing uphill.
"Sweet!" The tunnel of snow collapsed around Bergie. His board disappeared. He stepped forward lightly as if it had all been planned. "Awesome plant!"
Neeta held her hand away from her body and willed her chainsaw into it. She tabbed it on, letting the roar feed her confidence. "All right, Eidelberg. You have thirty seconds to explain why you are still in my head, messing up my dreams, and it had better be good or I will give you a lobotomy."
"Whoa! Chill. You know that’d be, like, lobotomizing your subconscious, right?"
She revved the chain. "Twenty seconds."
Bergie’s face twisted with hurt. "You know, I’m here because you put me here!"
Right. Because she just loved having nightmares about friends she’d had to decapitate. The notion was so ridiculous, she raised the chainsaw in reply.
Bergie hugged his head against his chest. His voice was muffled from his arms. "Okay! Fine! Let me ask a question. Why’d you let me go in there dressed in plastic wrap?"
She lowered the chainsaw in surprise, and it traced the ZDE symbol in the snow. Poppies sprouted from it. She barely noticed. Really? For over a year, he’d haunted her dreams to ask her why she approved his fashion choice?
The memory came back. Standing in front of the makeshift warehouse on the set of Zombie Death Extreme, gaping as Eidelberg stepped out of the van in his homemade Z-Mat suit: A helmet, board shorts, and layers upon layers of plastic wrapped tightly over his fabulous body. "Let’s do this thing, baby!" Hearing Dave hoot over her earpiece: "Now, that’s how to wow the audience."
"Would you have let Ted?"
"Yes! No! I don’t know! It was a TV show. There were supposed to be safeties in place." Two zombies. Dave had told her two zombies awaited them in the warehouse. She could take out two on her own, and she had eight armed plebes to assist.

"You let me go in there dressed in plastic wrap."
Telling Dave to stop the show. Dave laughing and saying he was confident in her. "I put you in the center of everyone, Bergie! All you should have had to worry about was splatter. Now, do you mind? There’s a zombie loose. I have people to protect."
"Why didn’t you protect me?" Bergie’s arms moved so he could look her in the eye. "Why didn’t you protect me?"
"You were supposed to protect yourself!" she screamed. "That was the whole point of the whole damn show. Learning to be smart with the chances you took. I would never have had to make that decision with Ted. He takes chances, but he’s smart about them. I thought you were, too."
Her eyes filled with tears, blurring the vision of the surfer with the severed head. "I wanted to stop the episode. Dave wouldn’t let me. I put you in the middle of everyone. You were meat-shielded. You were the safest person in that warehouse, even safer than the cameramen. You jumped out of formation, Bergie! You left the group like I’d warned everyone not to. The zombies were on you before I could snatch you back. I tried to protect you, but I can only do so much against stupid!"
Her word echoed across the mountainside, but instead of causing an avalanche, it froze the snow she’d forgotten was heading her way. The world grew so silent, her ears pounded.
"Wow. You’re right." Bergie settled his head on his neck. The torn flesh on both sides reached out like tentacles and interwove until it was secure. "I was totally stupid. So, feel better?"
She stopped to scrub her eyes. "That’s it? All this time, you wanted me to tell you, you were stupid?"
His head tilted, pulling at the flaps, but they held. "I think maybe you needed to tell yourself I was stupid. Or maybe this is one of those closure things? You know, like working out Daddy issues?"
She indicated the white ski suit she wore. "I think I might have done that in an earlier dream."
He nodded and pursed his lips. "That’s an awful wedding gown."
She rolled her eyes. "I know, right?"
"A tankini with a train? That’d be gnarly. So, like, are we good? Can I, you know, like, come back sometime?"
"With or without your head on straight?" She snickered. It felt so good to laugh, even if it was a macabre joke.
"Whatever shoots your tube, baby." He lifted his head off his neck like doffing his hat, and it was a moment before she could stop laughing enough to ask, "What about the cryptic messages? In life, you were anything but cryptic."
"That’s totally you, baby. Don’t shoot up Messenger."
She clutched her sides. "That’s an anti-drug slogan, you nut! The idiom is ‘Don’t shoot the messenger.’"
Bergie gave her a gentle smile. "Laugh more, Neeta Lyffe. You are awesome hot when you laugh."
A small avalanche of snow broke free from the rest and flooded over him, and he was gone. Then, like the Cheshire Cat, his head reappeared. "Hey, speaking of hot. Didn’t Roscoe say Spars had the hots for buff blondes who give him trophies? Just a thought. Hope it’s not, like, too cryptic or anything."
Neeta sat up in bed. She scrambled for her phone. 4:30 a.m., but she didn’t care. She dialed Mandy’s number, and when she heard her half-sister’s sleepy mumble, said, "Wake up that husband of yours and give him the phone. I know how to catch our zombie."
*
*Fricken donkey fleapit. Come on. You know you want to add this to your vocabulary now.
**Fricken spastic old turd. Isn’t learning a second language fun?
Thanks for reading Shambling in a Winter Wonderland! If you enjoyed this, you may want to check out Liberty Island’s other Fabian zombie story, "Josie’s Last Straw."