Looking for love can be deadly…
You know how it goes. You go out, hoping to meet someone. You wade through your fair share of brainless automatons, lifeless bodies, and ravenous undead good at passing as human.
The more you go out, the less hope you feel and the colder your body gets. But you keep at it. All you need is one beating heart to match your own before yours stops pumping altogether. How hard can it be to find one living, breathing human in a city full of bodies?
Dating.
It’s hungry business.
CW: Assault
This short story is a different take on the zombie virus - these undead still seek out the living for their own reasons, but they go about it in an entirely different way - through dating.
In this quick read, Ms. DeBlassie takes the reader through many emotions. It is written in a second person POV, which I usually don't enjoy, but which works in this case. I don't know if it's because it's so short, but I was finished with the story before it actually dawned on me how it was written. She takes you right into the action and doesn't slow down until the end.
The main character is strong - way stronger than I think I would have been in the same situation. I do understand her desire for making a connection with someone, though. Even if it's just the cat across the street.
Good job, Ms.DeBlassie. I'll be on the lookout for more of your stories. 4 stars.
At home, you take a bath as hot as you can stand and read an old bodice ripper until the warmth returns to your veins, and the flames of hope have been fanned enough that you can crawl into your flannel jammies and be grateful you are still alive. The light in your apartment slowly seeps into your chest, and you settle into your perch on the window.
You inspect the damage to your pinky finger as you wait for the cat to appear. The bath stopped the spread of the decay but the tip is gray and blue. There is pus where your fingernail should have been. You smother it in aloe vera, grated ginger, and bandages, hoping it will be enough to bring life back into your appendage. You don’t really know how to treat something like this. You sigh and lean back against the window frame. Your orange tabby cat has made its appearance—yours, yes, though you know you shouldn’t feel so possessive about a creature you only know from a distance. It’s just nice to know it’s there.
Here’s the thing you love about the cat across the way: It’s proof that there are other beating hearts out there. Cats won’t settle where Hungries live. Perhaps their feline instincts tell them they’re easy prey for the things that are never satiated. That’s why you never see alley cats in the humanless neighborhoods. In fact, it was their strange mass exodus from certain parts of the city that first alerted officials to the virus now plaguing them. And this cat—bright orange like a flame with a soft, full belly—seems happy enough in its home. You wonder what kind of human it belongs to.
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The book is $0.99 during the tour
Amazon buy link: https://www.amazon.com/Hungry-Business-Short-Maria-DeBlassie-ebook/dp/B08L48MVHD
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ReplyDeleteThank you for your thoughtful review!
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