Death By Chocolate

It’s the second day since the zombie apocalypse started and all Jared can go on about is how much he wants chocolate cake. It probably doesn’t help that it’s his birthday, but you’d think the man would have some priorities about living through a zombie apocalypse. But no, all he can think about is having chocolate cake for his birthday.

“I would make some cake, but we don’t have all the ingredients sweetie, and there’s the pressing matter of the zombie apocalypse.”

“I know, I know. It’s just my birthday. Why couldn’t they have scheduled the zombie apocalypse for the day AFTER my birthday,” he whines.

“Sadly no one took the time to consult your busy schedule and make sure that the zombie apocalypse happened after your birthday. I don’t know what they were thinking, but clearly they weren’t thinking of you,” I dryly reply.

Jared gives me an injured look and sulkily says, “There’s no need to rub salt in the wound. I know it’s a bit ridiculous on my part. I just wanted to enjoy my birthday, and you know how I love chocolate cake.”

I sigh and take pity on this ridiculous man I’ve been married to for twenty years.

“Yes, I know how you love chocolate cake. Fortunately I have most of the ingredients and maybe I can improvise a bit. I’ll make a cake. You keep watch for zombies. Even though we haven’t had any more attack us since the other day, in the barn, I don’t want to take any chances.”

Jared gives me a hopeful look and stands up.

“I’ll keep watch while you bake me a cake. I always love your cakes!” he enthusiastically says. Then he kisses me and walks over to the front door, pausing to grab one of the shotguns and his prized semi-automatic rifle.

I shake my head at him and go into the kitchen and grab the ingredients. The truth is I have all the ingredients. I know how important chocolate cake is to him. Every year, I make sure I have everything I need. This will be a nice surprise.

I turn on the radio, hoping I’ll hear something, as I start making the cake. All I get now is a crackle of static. Whatever’s happening out there in the world, it’s already bringing down the infrastructure as we know it. It makes me worry that we’re making a mistake by staying here, but Jared insists that this is the place to stay.

“This is our home. It’s got our food, our livestock, and everything else. If we leave this place because of zombies we might not have anything to come back to. We’ve got plenty of ammo and weapons. We’ve got each other. That’s all we really need.”

I try to believe Jared, but we’re living in a changed world now. The comforts and ills of civilization are already starting to fade away. I suppose it’s another reason to make this chocolate cake. It might be the last one I ever make for Jared, the last one either of us ever enjoy.

I’ve got everything together. I turn on the oven and start baking the cake. I set the timer and walk outside to Jared.

“How’s the cake coming?” he hopefully asks.

“It’s baking right now. I think you’ll enjoy it a lot.”

“Anything you cook I enjoy.”

“Flatterer. How is it out here?”

“No movement. I checked the traps I set up earlier today and nothing has tripped them. Maybe the only zombies we’ll deal with were the ones we already finished off yesterday.”

“If only it were true, sweetie. I somehow think we’ll see more of them.”

Jared sighs and I put my left hand on his right arm. He awkwardly reaches over which his left hand and squeezes it. We stand out there for a while just wordlessly keeping watch. Then the timer sounds. The baking is done.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes with a slice of birthday cake,” I say.

“I’ll be here,” Jared says and licks his lips.

I go back into the house and turn off the oven and pull the cake out. I’ve got to let it cool down a bit, so I decide to do a little patrol to the back door and make sure nothing is happening that way. I peek out the curtain but there’s nothing there. If it weren’t for the fact that I killed zombies yesterday, I would think this was just another day of my life on this farm. For the next few minutes I keep a wary eye on the world outside my house and then judging that the cake has cooled enough, I go back and start putting on the icing.

After the icing is on I put some candles on the cake and take a lighter out and light them. Then I carefully grab the cake plate and walk to the front door.

“I’ve got what you’ve been waiting for,” I sing out to Jared.

“Uhhh, save that for later honey and grab a gun. We’ve got some zombies here.”

I knew it was too good to be true. I knew more zombies were coming. I put the cake down on the table, blow out the candles, and then rush to the front door and grab the hunting rifle and a pistol, before heading out.

There are zombies coming up the driveway and through our fields. There’s a lot of them. Jared has his assault rifle ready, but he isn’t firing it yet. We both know that shooting any of the guns without making sure of the shot isn’t just wasting bullets. It’s wasting our lives, because the moment we need those bullets is when we won’t have them because we were careless.

One of the zombies sees us and screeches. The other zombies raise their heads, see us and shriek their hunger to the skies before bounding toward us.

I coolly aim the hunting rifle and fire. One of the zombie’s heads turn into fine red mist. I cock the bolt and eject the bullet, and load up another one and take aim again. The zombies are moving fast, but I’ve hunted enough deer to know how to anticipate movement and I carefully track the loping stride of a zombie and then pull the trigger. The zombie goes down and I get ready for my next one.

Jared starts firing the semi-automatic rifle with a burst of bullets that shred the oncoming zombies. I start firing at the ones further back. His gun is good for closer range, but the hunting rifle is great for longer distances.

For the next ten minutes we shoot our guns, clearing out the zombies. Jared has to reload a couple times, and by the time we’re done we’ve used up a small mountain’s worth of ammo. Fortunately we’ve got a lot more of it. Jared has always been a gun nut and more than I’m ever I’m glad for that fact.

Jared pants as we look at our bloody work. There are zombie corpses everywhere.

“What are we going to do with all these zombies?” he asks.

“Grab the wheel barrow, load them up and take them down the road. But before we do that, why don’t we enjoy a slice of chocolate birthday cake?”

“Death by chocolate. I’ll take that any day over death by zombie attack,” Jared says.

To be continued...

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