MEAT

John eats his breakfast alone at his table with a giant smile on his face.

His wife sleeps curled up in bed as he says, "Goodbye honey" with the same smile on his face.

He smiles the same big smile as he pumps gas into his car.

At work, John smiles as he writes on the large calander covering most of his neat and ordered desk.

Back at home the same radiant smile is plastered on his face as takes a bite from a giant turkey leg.

His wife is curled up in the same position as he lies down for sleep. John doesn't close his eyes and keeps the smile as he rests in bed. The sun goes down. The sun comes up.

John eats breakfast alone at his table with a giant smile on his face.

His wife sleeps curled up in bed as he says, "Goodbye honey" with the same smile on his face.

He smiles the same big smile as he pumps gas into his car until the smell hits him. John's smile drops. The smell is better than anything he's ever smelled before forcing his eyes to roll back in ecstacy.

When they reopen everything is different. The gas station is abandoned and the car is burnt out. The pump he holds in connected to nothing. John himself has changed. He is a zombie and he smelled meat.

Daniel and Natasha run out from the woods near the shopping center carrying empty backpacks strapped with machetes and guns. John limps his way toward them.

The scent of meat fades as he wanders by the busted up windows of the shops he used to frequent. John suddenly feels the notion to return to his old office, a place he was very fond of when he was alive. It made him feel very important and powerful.

At his office, zombie John scribbles inside of the little black book on his desk. Written at the top of the page are the words "Project Zed". The rest of the pages, however, are so scribbled over any words that were once written have been trippley drawn over.

Back at his home, zombie John sits at his empty dinner table groaning for meat. He gets the urge to go to bed and lumbers his way there. His bed is empty and stained with his unwashed clothes and dead skin. The sun goes down. The sun comes up.

John sits at his table preteding to eat because that's what John did.

John groans goodbye to the memory of his wife, because John loved his wife.

John pumps from a destroyed gas pump into a burnt out car because that's all the few memories left in his mind allow him to do.

Until the smell of meat returns. Daniel and Natasha cautiously make their way back to the shopping center. John limps toward them as fast as a dead man can.

The couple enter a shop closer by this time. John can hear them through the boarded up windows of the shop.

Daniel shoves multiple stuffed animals into his backpack.

"Do they really need that many stuffed animals?" Natasha asks as Daniel keeps shoving them into his bag.

"I was thinking we could spread giving them out in case we don't run into any for a while." Daniel replied, proud he had thought of the idea in the first place.

"Ok, that's fair." Natasha said with a hurt and defeated tone.

Dainel points to a door in the front of the store. "You check that room, I'll check the office in the back."

The couple splits up and check their respective rooms. Natasha finds herself in break room with opens and emptied cupboards.

"Oh my god!" Daniel shouts from the other room. Natasha draws her gun and runs to him. Her mouth drops as she sees Daniel standing over a duffle bag full of money.

"It's perfect." Daniel says as he lifts a note set atop the money.

"$20,000 I hope this gets you safe passage. I love you -Carol Ann"

Daniel lifts the bag and dumps out all of the money onto the desk.

"We can fit so much more into this bag." He says excitedly.

"Then let's fill it and get out of here. We've already been here too long." Natasha hurries back into the store.

John watches them leave the store through a busted out window pane. He follows them back into the woods but they're too fast for him, leaving him stranded in the middle of the woods. John lumbers back the way he came.

John's brain tells him he's sitting on a log in the middle of the woods roasting a marshmallow over a roaring fire. He goes over to his tent and zips himself up tight in his sleepingbag. Real John lies out flat on the grass, dead and groaning.

The sun comes up. Daniel and Natasha are back with their bags and new dufflebag. John smells them coming straight for him. The couple don't notice him under the brush of the forest.

John reaches out to grab Natasha, but his dead muscles slow his movement. He grabs onto Daniel's leg tripping him over on top of Natasha. John takes a bite from Daniels leg. He finally got his meat and it's the best thing he's ever tasted.

Daniel pulls out his gun and shoots John in the head, killing him instantly.

"No! No!! I will not become one of them. You have to shoot me." Daniel takes off his backpack and throws it at Natasha's feet.

"I can't." Natasha backs away from Daniel as he holds out his gun to her.

"Tell the kids I love them." He says as the gun lingers in the air.

She takes the gun and holds it out at her love. "I love you so much." The gun goes off. Daniel falls to the ground near John.

Natasha wipes the tears from her eyes as she grabs his bag. She walks back the way she came from, empty handed and with her partner lost.

John lies dead in the grass, meat hanging from his teeth, no more routine, memories finally faded.