The Zombie’s Halloween Costume

I always pay cash. Every year. It takes me awhile to save up, grabbing stray pennies on the ground here, a crumpled dollar bill there, but I do it. Every year, by the end of October, I do it. I keep it all in a big pickle jar in the back of the crypt, like my mom used to in her bedroom closet.

You know, before the outbreak.

I don’t even have to hide it.

The others grumble about money being useless to a zombie, but I don’t care. Most of them are stupid anyway, and not just stupid in that slow, shuffling zombie way but born stupid, before they were turned. “Mouth breathers,” I call them, even though they can’t breathe.

I stand on top of the drug store roof, crouched low, looking out across the town. Nightshade is a small town, especially from above, where it looks like a map laid out across some big, giant desk. There’s Main Street, with the drug store, the post office, the movie theater, the men’s shop, the women’s shop, the ice cream parlor, the diner.

Pine Street cuts across just past the bowling alley, and there are a few car garages, a body shop or two to the left, and to the right a few more restaurants, the Burger Barn with the drive-thru, and beyond that the houses start.