Zombie Bomb

The only sad thing about Audeline’s day was the fact that she was too tired to read the end of her favorite book, even though she’d already read it four and three-quarter times. The last time being the three quarters. Not only was it the only melancholic moment in her day, but she did not even recognize it, because she was asleep by the time that her brain knew that she was too tired to read to the end. The next morning, she would boil water for her tea, put lotion on her hands, and forget that she didn’t finish the book. In her mind, she had actually read her favorite book five times.

After finishing her tea, brushing her teeth for a second time, and putting on her right shoe after her left, Audeline would pick a leaf from the tree outside her steps to put inside her new book.

What Audeline will not notice is that her jaw will become slightly unhinged from smiling for forty-five straight minutes, which she also will not notice. She does notice that her hair is getting in her face though, and will slide the stray piece of hair behind her left ear.

All of this will happen with full consciousness of Audeline, but she will not think about it.



Audeline’s morning went rather smoothly, except for the fact that she did not grab blueberry muffin on the way to work, for the simple reason that she didn’t feel comfortable going without counting the exact amount of money in her dark green purse. Unfortunately, if she had counted, she would have had enough money for both a blueberry muffin, and a carton of orange juice.

Her worst fear is not having enough money when paying for a blueberry muffin, or anything at all like a blueberry muffin. To avoid this, she continually makes cashiers break twenty, fifty, and hundred dollar bills. By doing this, she also saves time that would have been spent looking for change, which might make customers behind her angry, by wasting their time.

Audeline’s fears aside, after she abstained from buying breakfast, she walked at a perfectly pleasurable pace to work. On such a beautiful morning where the sun shown through the trees to dance in the grass, and birds whistling to her as she passed in her flattering red sun dress, it seemed an even more pleasurable pace.

Work was a local book store called ‘The Swirling Eel Bookstore’. Without Audeline’s knowledge, fifteen years ago the store was supposed to be a restaurant called ‘The Palm Tree’, but the local artist creating the store’s sign wasn’t very good, and the owner decided, instead of firing the artist, to rename the store. Fortunately for Audeline, the restaurant’s owner was also a bibliophile, obsessed especially with leather-bound books. Among all of his other books, he kept his leather-bound glories in the shelves in the restaurant, in case his customers also wanted to share his happiness. This led to many bookshelves being installed where tables full of customers should have been, and soon no one was left to enjoy the not-so-wonderful cuisine of The Swirling Eel.

Fortunately for the owner, many passers-by mistakenly assumed that it was a bookstore. Although his personality made it ridiculously difficult to let go of his beautiful babies, his business partner recognized the opportunity, and seized it.

Audeline starting working five years after the original owner died, three years after his partner died, and also three years after her current boss, Laine Alison Briggs, took over ownership.

Eventually, Audeline reached the front door of The Swirling Eel.

“I need your help, Audeline! Come here,” the beautiful Ms. Briggs half-yelled, motioning to close the door.

Dropping her purse and running out of her shoes, Audeline ran to the back room to see what the matter was. The fact was, though, there was no matter. Ms. Briggs was only holding the phone and staring pleadingly at Audeline.

“I called the company, thinking to order books. Ha! Well, I just remembered that I forgot to check how many “Romeo and Juliet” copies we have in stock, and the scratchy-voiced lady is pregnant now so she’s more short-tempered than usual so I can’t tell her to hold on for a second without her disconnecting the line and so can you please go check how many copies there are on the shelf?” Ms. Briggs whispered that time, so try reading that passage again, but while keeping that in mind. And that she didn’t run out of air at all. In fact, she had very much left.

Audeline simply nodded and ran to check on the two copies that were hidden behind all of the other books in the classics section.

“I hope you know that you basically saved my life,” she choked as she put the phone on the receiver.

Audeline smiled. “You owe me.”

After an hour of no one buying any books, and Laine pretending to work, a young man finally entered with a small canvas bag.

‘What an ecologically safe man,’ thought Audeline. ‘He’s going to put the books he buys into his own bag, so that we don’t have to waste our plastic bags. How very refreshing.’

Little did she know, he did not have an empty bag for books, but rather, his bag was already full. Not with books, mind you, but with explosives. And not any explosives, mind you, but plastic explosives. So in fact, the young man that Audeline looked upon as so refreshing, so no more refreshing than a piece of seaweed is to a fish.

Fortunately for Audeline, he would not ignite his explosives at that time.

“I’m looking for a book, Miss. Can you help me,” the young man said, genuinely and politely.

At this point in time, Audeline still thought that the young man before her was refreshing, which I suppose he would be to anyone that didn’t know the truth. Which IS actually anyone.

Audeline tried to think of a very clever response, or something otherwise incredibly noticeable. But instead, she replied with the automated and not-at-all genuine reply, “Welcome to The Swirling Eel.” Nothing else. Not a, ‘Can I help you find a book?’ or a, ‘My name is Audeline.’

The man, as expected, nodded his head respectfully and said, “Thank you.”

Audeline was disappointed, although she had absolutely no reason to be. This young man was not obligated to say or do anything out of the norm for a girl that he had no previous connection to. In fact, saying anything at all was quite a step out of the norm, so really, she should be happy.

She waited for him to pass by the counter, and over to the other side of the store before she pretended to check on some more books for Laine on the same side of the store.

Put in a visual, it would look something like this:

=======================
|| [{ }    |x      |        |                     ||
||           |        |        |        [{ }z]    ||
||           |        |        |                     ||
||                                     [{ }]       ||
||-----------        <|>                       ||
||                    o<|>            -------  ||
||-----------        <|>           |           ||
||                      <|>           |           ||
||                                        -------   ||
=============--------======

All lines are covered with books. Except for the box of lines in the corner, because that’s the counter. Where I guess there are books too, but not as many. And obviously the door doesn’t have books on it. Unless Audeline wanted to get creative.

Anyway, the ‘x’ is him, the ‘o’ is her. The ‘z’ is Laine, because she’s sleeping.

So now that the situation’s clear, and everyone’s in position, the man casually pulled out a few books, which included “The History of Bombs,” “Hiroshima: The Man Behind the Bomb,” and “Cat’s Cradle,” for good measure.

‘What a well-read young man,’ thought Audeline, ‘learning about the evils of the world.’

Pushing his dark, brooding hair away from his face, he left the store with a wave. Little did he know, that Audeline was completely enthralled with him. And little did she know, that he had no idea. If she had given any indication that she was remotely interested in him, then he would have known.

After four more hours passed uneventfully, Audeline went home.



The green carpet of Audeline’s bedroom floor had a speck of red from her skirt, which she was subconsciously playing with as she laid on her side. She was just bored. And no, there wasn’t any other reason.

After sleeping and waking up again, Audeline hurried to work, again without a blueberry muffin or orange juice. It didn’t particularly matter though, because the job she was going to was unexpectedly blown up the night before, while she was fast asleep in her Pocahontas blanket.

The man that she saw in the bookstore yesterday was, not surprisingly, scoping out a place to unexpectedly blow up. He had a good reason, of course: they carried a book by an author that didn’t allow fan-fictions to be written about his books, and thus disturbing the creative flow of the universe, and the bomber himself.

Upon seeing the atrocity, and with no particular reason to not blow it up, he formulated the plan to bring a beautiful basket of scones to the doorstep, wait for Ms. Laine to greedily bite into them, and the task would be irrefutably complete.

The problem with that, was that Mr. Bomber’s associates had accidentally and unknowingly trapped the Solanum virus inside the tightly packed pieces of their quality explosive device.

Thus, with the newfound and unknown zombie ability, Laine finished her scone, and sought for other things to bite.



Audeline arrived at work, only to be turned into a zombie. Strangely enough, it was a pleasurable experience, as far as contracting viruses is concerned. Not as pleasurable, perhaps, as contracting gonorrhea, HIV, or herpes, but still pleasurable enough that she didn’t seem to mind that she had the abstract need to feed upon flesh, or that her usually beautifully moisturized face was literally falling to pieces in her hands.

To her pleasure, she found that Fynn, the boy with the bomb, was also a zombie. His groaning sounded something along the lines of, “I lost my leg.” And indeed, his calf was separated from his thigh, and being gnawed by a newt.

“Graaaaaaghhhhaaaa.” She meant to say, “I’ll get it for you.”

He understood though, and responded with, “Gaaa klaaaar.”

Audeline never came to her full senses.