Excerpt: Zombies Don't Eat Blondes

“Whoa, these mice are out of control!” Jason ran to the counter along the back wall and grabbed up a small knife. “I think we’d better call this experiment over!”
“What are you going to do?”
“If we can’t keep them in a cage, then they’re going to have to die. We can’t use them any more.”
“Aw, do you have to kill them?” Mary Anne pouted. “I mean, they’re pretty cute, even though one did bite me. Maybe we could keep them in a locked room or something.”
“Would you listen to yourself?” Jason shook his head at her. “You’re going to have a miserable time in this job if you’re getting soft and weepy over a bunch of messed up mice!”
She kicked away another mouse and plumped her ample bottom on another counter, lifting her feet high from the floor. “All right, fine. But I’m not going to watch!” She folded her arms across her chest and squeezed her eyes shut.
Jason brandished the knife as the mice turned their attack to his feet. “It’ll be over quick, I promise.” The knife flashed as his arm swooped out and he severed their little green heads right from their bodies. Mary Anne unfolded her arms to plug her ears as their squeals of pain abruptly stopped.
After a few silent moments, she hesitantly lifted one had away from her ear. “Are you done?” She cracked an eyelid and saw Jason hunkered down on the floor. She shifted forward to the edge of the counter and let her legs swing down as she looked at his handiwork.
“Green blood.” Jason glanced back and forth between the mouse corpses and the satiny green liquid coating the knife. “Even their blood turned green.”
“Wow, gross.” Now that the excitement was over, Mary Anne started to slide down from the counter. Her knees buckled under her when she landed, her brown curls spilling forward to hide her face. She landed heavily, her hands smushing into the pile of mouse bodies. She felt something rising up inside her stomach like she was about to puke up a year’s worth of meals.
Jason yelped and grabbed her arm to lever her up. “Ew, Mary Anne. You fell right into - Hey, are you okay?”
Mary Anne’s body shook as she gasped, “I - I don’t - know! What’s - wha - happen -” She flopped onto her side and convulsed, her fingers curling up so tight her pink acrylic nails with little white flowers cut into the palms. Blood flowed over her arms and dripped on the floor as he head bucked and her feet kicked dents in the cabinets under the counter.
Jason freaked, dropping the knife. “Mary Anne!” He held his hands out to her, but didn’t touch her.
The blood that dripped from her fingers and palms slowed. In her last moment of lucidity, she looked at her own bloody hands and saw the color: a muddy brown, like that of red and green mixed together.
“Oh - g-god,” she choked. Her arms flew out to her sides, splashing the cabinets with her blood and the acrylic nails that had broken loose, ragged pieces of real nail attached to the undersides. Her limbs stiffened and her head arched back, eyes wide and staring. Her lungs squeezed all the air out and locked.
Jason stood up and moved back, grabbing the edge of the counter with both hands. He finally remembered to breathe after a minute, gasping so hard he nearly hit the counter with his forehead.
Suddenly Mary Anne’s limbs relaxed. Jason pushed himself away from the counter, knees shaking. As he stared, Mary Anne’s eyes opened; her blood red gaze snapped to catch his. He choked.
“Why, Jason,” she whispered. She pushed herself up to sitting, her broken fingers dragging patterns in the blood on the floor. Rolling to her hip, she ran her tongue around her lips. Jason could see she’d bitten off a chunk of her tongue during her convulsions.
She was on her feet before he realized it, stepping on the mouse bodies as she moved forward. The mice were also wiggling around in their blood, paws scrabbling blindly as their teeth gnashed in their severed heads. Jason’s jaw swung lower as he took this in.
“I never realized ... I never thought ...” She reached a hand toward him. “How good, how delicious, how -” She inhaled deeply. “- how positively tantalizing your brains smell.”
That was when he realized she was staring at his forehead.