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Short Story Of Amber Riley

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Amber Riley’s husband had promised that he would come home to her no matter what, so after they reported him dead she began to keep the shotgun next to the front door. The day he returned, ambling, shambling, reeking of decay, the dog barked once in warning and went to hide under the back porch. Amber dried her hands on a dish towel and went to look at her husband through the screen. “Amber,” he said. (Not “brains.”) She ran a finger down the barrel of the shotgun, propped beside her. “Thank you for coming.” “I promised.” He smiled under the bullet hole they’d put through his forehead. Dried blood flaked off of his eyelid when he blinked. “You know I’ve never played you false.” “I’m not coming with you,” she told him. “Death has done us part. …show more content…

Two of the dead walked right up onto the front step, one of them carrying a small box wrapped in a tattered, blackened flag. “Mrs. Riley,” he said. “We’d like to come in.” “No,” she said. “Thanks all the same, I can hear you from here.” She stood back far enough so she could swing the shotgun up to shoot if she had to. The zombie coughed politely. “Your husband self-immolated on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. They’re calling it cremation, but you should know that it was protest.” He put the flag-wrapped box down on her welcome mat, and straightened with difficulty. “I’ll leave that there for you.” When they staggered away, she put the shotgun to her shoulder. “He started a whole damn movement, huh?” They stopped, turned, took the sight of her weapon without emotion. “When he stood up, somebody else realized he could. And somebody else, and somebody else.” “He gave you hope?” The second zombie, who had not spoken, laughed harshly. The first said, “We thought we were finished, and right or wrong no one could ask more of us. But we saw that the world went on, without judgment or rest. He took our hope away.” She stood a long time after they had gone, looking at the evening down the long cool

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