Classical music is playing gently from the shadows, by way of an old, crackling radio. A pot of chrysanthemums sits, wilting by the window, through which thin beams of light stream through the otherwise dim room and illuminate mites of dust and small patches of the crooked, wooden floorboards. The armchair in which you rest is comfortable, musty and blood-red. It’s filthy, but cushy. You fiddle with the gun in your calloused hands, turning cold metal slowly warm, cleaning it for the millionth time. Finally, you load it, and flick off the safety.
Now’s as good a time as ever.
You stand and turn down the radio. You can’t believe that there’s still a station out there, somewhere, playing this stuff. It’s nice, though. Relaxing. You could use a little relaxing right about now.
Grunts and moans taper in from outside. You grimace and peek out the window. Your hair flops in your eyes and you peer at it, annoyed. It shouldn’t be this long. You haven’t had time for a haircut. You back away from the window and lace up heavy hiking boots, covered in mud, over ankles that seem to thicken more every day. You rub a dirty hand over your equally dirty face and sigh, pushing the mildly greasy hair off of your forehead. You pick up your cargo, leaving both of your hands occupied. May be a little dangerous, going out there with neither hand free, but, anyway. Ready.
You jump out of your safehouse, gun in hand, bag on back, itchy trigger finger and a lot of bundled nerves. First guy you see jump out gets a bullet in the head and falls over. You run to the cover of a sparse line of trees at the edge of this plot and take the moment it bought you to look back. Not too many mindless, post-human creatures out here today, but the gunshot will probably attract more. It’ll be tough getting back tonight, but for now you don’t mind. You’re sure you’ll be able to strong-arm your way through. You’ve gained a little muscle since this whole debacle began. It shouldn’t be too bad. Or fatal. To you.
You rush down a path of loose, dry dirt. Your heavy, rubber-soled boots kick up a lot of dust. You have your gun in one hand, and your bit of cargo in the other. You move that arm to heft the weight a bit, checking to make sure all’s well. Seems so.
You slow. The groaning behind you has lessened considerably. You enter denser woods, and it’s all darker. It feels unsafe, but there wouldn’t be many aggressors here, where people rarely are. That’s why you hope she’s safe, all alone out here. Sometimes, some tough choices have to be made.
And sometimes, it’s you that has to make them.
You hear a rustle in the woods, and your feet and your thoughts come to a screeching hault. You raise your gun, instinctively, warily glancing from side to side. Movement, getting closer. You spread your feet and your fingers tighten on the trigger of your pistol.
A creature jumps out from the shelter of trees and foliage around you and your gun goes off. You hear a screech and dodge a dark, spindly body flying by you.
A growl. You look at your attacker.
A wolf, it seems, at first. But strangely human in form, legs that seem capable for both a biped and a quadruped. It rubs its arm and blood wets its fur, over what is most likely the bullet wound. Probably no more than a heavy scrape though. The projectile you shot must have gone through.
The wolf looks at you, and you look back, muscles still tense.
“That was… rude.” It says, finally.
“Maybe you shouldn’t sneak up on someone when they’re passing through the woods.” You feel your voice deepen, defensively, as if you’re about to growl to intimidate this thing. The urge feels weirdly primal and you force it down in fear of humiliating yourself.
“Maybe not,” the wolf agrees, looking away.
“That blood’s gonna attract them, you know.”
The wolf hmphs good-naturedly. This, too, feels strange, given the situation.
“Well, now, who’s fault is that.” It grins at you, revealing the sharp, slightly yellowed teeth that fill its maw to the brim. “Besides, a big toughie like you should be able to fight them off just fine.”
I give a grimace in place of a smile. “Sure. I took down the big-bad-wolf, didn’t you hear?”
“Sure,” it replies, clearly unamused with the reference to an old bedtime story it must have heard dozens of times. “So… what do you have there?” It gestures with a tilt of its head to the cargo in your gunless hand.
“Nothing much,” you say. What reason has this thing to know your business?
“Smells nice,” the wolf says, and you realize that, of course, the thing must have that doggy sense of smell.
“It’s just a little treat.”
“Aw, for me? You shouldn’t have.”
You recoil. “Yeah, I didn’t. It’s not for you.”
The wolf’s grin falls and it looks at you, intently. “Well what is a big-bad-human like you doing with a basket full of that?”
You glare at it and turn away. Your angle is off from your destination, a tactic to throw the thing off your trail, should it decide to follow you for a closer look at your treat.
“If you’ll excuse me.” You walk away. The wolf mutters in a voice that, though it is quiet, has an intensity that makes you feel like it’s right in your ear.
“Of course.”
You continue away without pause.
Because of your diversion tactic, you get a little lost and it takes too long to find the path again. The sun moves, determined, through the sky. The light begins to dim and you chew on your lip, hoping it’s not too dark when you make your way back. You’ll make this particular visit short.
You come across a small, cozy looking house amidst the trees. Despite everything, you missed this place.
The outer walls are a pale pink, in places that the paint still clings stubbornly to the wilting wood. The roof used to look nice and white, but it had required a few patch jobs over time and is now primarily the dark, brown wood of the local trees. Stumps litter the ground and you remember stressful moments with the chainsaw, picking the thinnest trees you could find around here in the empty woods and still having to take full minutes to cut through, all the while begging for the zombies nearest to have horrible hearing.
This whole end-of-the-world thing really sucks sometimes.
You step through the front door, into darkness and a heavy stench. That’s usual. Still not used to it, though. You put down your basket and hesitate before flicking the safety off your gun. Hopefully, there’ll be no use for it.
“Dearie… is that you?” A weak voice from another room and your heart stutters.
God, that really surprised you, in this pressured silence.
“Grandma?” You call, picking up your basket and walking into her room. She lies on her bed, in her nightgown, blanket pulled up past her mouth. It’s hard to see her in this dark, but something is wrong.
“I brought you some treats,” you say.
“Oh, my, thank you,” Grandma says. “Put it down by the bed, dearie, let me see you.”
You put down the basket and discreetly flick the safety off your gun. You aren’t trusting this room.
“What big eyes you have, granny,” you say, just now noticing the off-colored orbs peeking above the blanket, peering at you through the darkness.
“All the better to see your pretty face with, my dear,” says Grandma.
“And what… large ears you have, too.”
“All the better to hear your pointless observations,” she says, a bit dryly.
You pull the gun out and aim it between the reflective eyes. “What sharp teeth you have, my darling grandmother.”
“All the better to eat you with.”
The wolf jumps out from beneath the covers and swipes at you. You back away, your perfect shot was disrupted and your precious bullet hits the wall behind the creature.
Of course, the perfect time to need a reload.
You duck for cover and fumble with the next clip. You curse when you drop it and the wolf’s tail flicks it across the room.
Well, no use for the pistol now. You throw it at its head and the wolf’s fleeting moment of pain gives you a little wiggle room. You dart for a side room that you’ve prepared for a situation, well, nothing like this, but it’ll do you just fine.
You dive in, stumbling around in the dark. Things fall off shelves and you find what you’re looking for.
“So,” the wolf begins, standing in the doorway. You stand in front of the object in your hand to hide it and look back, your gaze unwavering. It gives you a snarling, smug grin, full of teeth.
“Who’s the big-bad here? I would say me.”
“Why,” you say. “Because you’re taller?”
“Because you’re a little girl,” it sneers. “Why else?”
“Right,” you say, unconvinced.
“Tell me, dearie, before I eat you. However could you tell that something was wrong before you’d even walked in the room? I could see you, so stiff. Was it the voice?”
“Not really,” you say, and suddenly you have launched yourself at the wolf. You slam the heavy, blunt end of the chainsaw in your hands at its head and it howls in pain. You take its stunned moment to gain some footing, get on top of it. You rev up the chainsaw and hold it at its throat, keeping it still, glaring at you and breathing heavily.
“It’s because,” you say, moving the chainsaw down to the wolf’s stomach and plunging it in before it could move. It howls again.
“My grandma is dead.”

Half an hour later there is blood everywhere, and two dead things in the room. Well, at least one of them is still moving. Weird of the wolf to have swallowed her whole, but your grandma is back in her room, groaning and sickly, as per usual. You don’t know how the wolf had missed that. You guess that, well, it was dark, and the poor thing was probably hungry. You lure your grandmother away from her interest in your own flesh with the treat in your basket and she digs vigorously into someone already quite dead.
You don’t think about where you got the somewhat-fresh human body parts. You instead focus on the good sign that your grandmother will still try to avoid eating you, if there is something else to focus on. That gives you hope. For a cure, maybe. Or just for a little company.
You drag the wolf’s corpse out of the house and dump it several clearings away. You don’t want this blood attracting too much activity to Grandmother’s house.
The trip there and back to get your basket and pistol takes up more of the day, and when you make your way back it’s getting dark. You had hoped to avoid that, but it’s fine. You’re in a better mood now. Your gun is loaded and ready for action. And anyway, by now, the interest sparked by your gunshot this morning has probably dissipated when they realized nobody was there anymore. Quite an optimistic idea, but not unreasonable.
You smile and skip and sing on your way back, this time not minding the attention noise will bring you. Your red dress and cape- blotchy from a mix of rose dye and blood- swings against your legs as you sing, quietly, over the sound of a shot when an undead man gets too close.
“Over the river, and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go…”