Trust Fall

Short Story 7

From the Writer’s Room

This month my flash horror story Hunger Pains was published by Flash Fiction Magazine! There’s a lot of great stories of any genre on that site, if you have five minutes and want a quick read.

I finished my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge with King of Ashes by S.A. Cosby. Reading the latest novel of a great author I discovered in the beginning of the year, really capped off the challenge. He’s jumped to my top ten list this year.

I’m doing an augmented NaNoWriMo. For those that don’t know NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, where writers attempt to get the rough draft of a novel completed in thirty days. Usually the goal is 50,000 words in that month. Unfortunately, I had to travel for work and got sick which greatly slowed me down. Now that I’m rounding the corner health-wise, I’m realizing most of what I wrote while sick is not usable for this project.

It turns out I am definitely a planner and not a pantser. So, halfway through the month, I’m creating a new outline and starting over. At the end of the month I’ll let ya’ll know how far I made it.

On to the story! This is a longer one.

The Idea

This was the first time I wrote a story based on a prompt given by a magazine. Previously every story was something I came up with through some stray line of thought. I think I did a good job, but unfortunately the magazine decided not to print. It was unclear if they didn’t get enough submissions or there was some other logistical problem.

The story prompt was something like, ‘What does America look like ten years after the zombie apocalypse?’. And from that, Trust Fall was born. I’d like to either turn it into a serialized set of short stories or a novel, one day.

Trust Fall

by Tom Ramey

“I survived the zombie apocalypse, and the worst part of my life is this goddamn copy machine!” Dave bellowed, throwing his hands up.

“Was it really an apocalypse? Didn’t the plague have a higher death toll?”, I asked, leaning against the doorframe.

Dave turned to glare at me, eyes already exhausted from the fight he was having with the office equipment. “The plague had a higher death toll, sure, but that was spread out over years. America lost a hundred million people in under twelve months. Most of them in the first three.”

“Still not an apocalypse.” I teased.

His jaw clenched. He wanted to argue, but I was right. The world hadn’t ended, not really. Humanity tripped, fell hard, and got back up.

Just like the dead.

“Either way,” Dave huffed, “my point is, we went through a survival-of-the-fittest event and came out on top. We won Darwinism. And what’s our prize? Fighting a copier to print out a bunch of pamphlets.” He jabbed a finger at the cursed machine. “Do you think any of these teachers or admin know how this thing works?”

“Probably not,” I admitted. “Most of these rural schools got their equipment from abandoned city schools. But there aren’t a lot of Xerox techs around anymore.”

“Then Xerox should be here recruiting like we are!”

I chuckled. He wasn’t wrong.

“Do you really need the pamphlets that badly?” I asked. “You brought business cards, right? Just hand them out and talk to people.”

Dave exhaled sharply. “I just wish things worked like they used to.”

“Those things never worked, even before.”

“But when they didn’t,” he countered, “there was usually someone you could call to fix it. You’re a computer guy, right? Do you know how to fix this thing?”

I glanced at the machine. Truthfully, I probably could figure it out. But I didn’t want to spend the next fifteen minutes tinkering with it while Dave gave me a motivational speech about surviving zombies only to be bested by office equipment.

“Sorry, man. I’m software. You need a hardware guy.”

“You got no ideas?”

I shrugged. “There’s always mechanical agitation.”

Dave blinked at me.

I sighed. “Give it a smack.”

He hesitated, then balled his fist and slugged the side of the copier like he was trying to punch his way back into the pre-apocalypse world.

I left him clubbing the copier like a caveman and walked through the halls toward the gym, where our booths were set up.

Along the way, I glanced through the glass on the classroom doors, curious how education was working now that we were mostly back to analog.

In one class, an old-school projector superimposed an image of the current President on the wall. The thing had probably been sitting in a storage room, untouched for decades, until suddenly, no one alive knew how to troubleshoot smart boards.

I was surprised they were bothering to learn about the current President. In the fifteen years since the outbreak, we’d gone through twelve of them. The only one I remembered was the woman, because that was novel. A real win for feminism.

She made it almost two years before being assassinated.

There’s no period between elections anymore. If you’re elected, you’re in charge until you piss off a group enough that they form a mob and kill you. It’s surprisingly easy to kill government officials now.

In a bid to not get killed, the current President decided he was going to fix every industry in the country at once. His great idea was to set mandatory work programs for high school aged kids.

That’s why I was here, plucked from my basement cubicle and sent to a high school gym to recruit fresh talent. It was a nice change of pace, even if my job was basically to convince teenagers to learn programming from books because all the software that used to teach them was broken, and there weren’t enough programmers left to fix it.

The gym buzzed with conversation, the murmur of recruiters pitching their programs to half-interested students. Rows of folding tables lined the floor, each one manned by someone like me, trying to sell a future in a world still piecing itself together. I wove through the crowd, past booths promising careers in agriculture, medicine, and engineering, all industries that had become the backbone of survival. Finally, I reached my station, dropping my bag beside the table and straightening the stack of programming textbooks I’d brought.

Across the gym, Dave was setting up his booth, recruiting kids to be therapists. Therapy was one of the fastest-growing industries now. Demand was so high you didn’t even need a license, just pass a few tests, apprentice under someone for a couple of years, and you were in. Any one of these freshmen could graduate with the credentials to be a therapist if they worked under Dave each year.

He had his pamphlets. Good for him.

Sometimes, hitting things solved the problem.

That should be the motto of the new world.

I had just finished adjusting my display when a boy approached my booth. Maybe fifteen or sixteen, gray hoodie a size too big, hands shoved into his pockets. He was a little too old to be a freshman, but that wasn’t uncommon these days. With everything that had happened, school wasn’t exactly running on schedule anymore.

He glanced at the books, then at me.

“You’re the programming guy?”

“That’s me,” I said. “Interested?”

He shrugged, shifting his weight. “Maybe. What’s the program?”

I leaned on the table. “First year, you train under me. Leave school after lunch, help out with small tasks. If you stick with it, you’ll move on to a local government facility, working on whatever projects are still running.”

A girl with a high ponytail, who had been listening in, edged closer. “Is it a good career?”

I smirked. “Let’s just say I make enough to retire early if I want.”

“Then why are you here?” the boy in the hoodie asked.

I gestured around the gym. “Because if we don’t train new people, this whole system falls apart. Before, people were expendable. If one person quit or retired there were dozens waiting to take their place. That’s not how it is anymore.”

Another kid, tall and lanky, crossed his arms. “What kind of stuff would we actually be doing?”

I could have given them the inspiring speech about rebuilding the world. Instead, I went with the truth. “Probably maintaining bureaucratic spreadsheets and fixing broken databases.”

Ponytail Girl wrinkled her nose. “That sounds boring as hell.”

“It is,” I admitted. “But it pays well.”

That got their attention. More kids drifted over, drawn by the talk of money.

“How’d you get into it?” one of them asked.

I leaned back. “Right place, right time. Or wrong time, depending on how you look at it.”

“What do you mean?”

I glanced at the growing group. They were young, maybe two or three when the outbreak happened. Barely old enough to remember it at all.

“You ever hear about how the Year of the Dead wiped out most of the country’s best programmers?”

A few shook their heads. Others just listened.

“They were all packed into a convention center for a tech conference when the outbreak hit,” I explained. “One day, they were arguing about coding languages over overpriced coffee. The next, they were gone.”

Ponytail Girl raised an eyebrow. “Wait, like… all of them?”

“Enough of them,” I said. “Just like that, my competition in the job market disappeared overnight. I went from a mid-level nobody to making half a million a year just to keep the government’s crumbling databases running.”

“Damn,” Hoodie Boy muttered.

“Yeah. Money doesn’t mean as much as it used to, but I still like the sound of ‘multi-millionaire.’”

Lanky Kid frowned. “Wait, how are there more millionaires now?”

I gave him a knowing look. These kids were more interested in fishing for information about the Year of the Dead and the Before, than programming jobs. I couldn’t blame them.

“Because while everyone else was trying to survive, some people were busy getting rich. When the cleanup crews finally scraped the last bodies off the sidewalks, a few folks had already made their fortunes. The ones who weren’t above looting wallets, skimming passwords, and draining accounts.”

One of the quieter kids spoke up. “That’s messed up.”

“It is,” I agreed. “There was talk of prosecuting them, but in the end, the government figured they had, in a twisted way, ‘earned’ it.”

Ponytail Girl scoffed. “That’s bullshit.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. They did pass a law saying if a relative could prove their deceased family’s money had been stolen, they’d be reimbursed.”

Lanky Kid tilted his head. “Did anyone actually file a claim?”

I shook my head. “Nope. But it made for a good headline.”

There was a pause as they took it in. Then Hoodie Boy nodded toward the books. “So… this is actually a solid job?”

“If you like stability, yeah. You might even get to work on the team bringing back the internet.”

That part wasn’t true, but they didn’t need to know that. More likely, they’d be stuck maintaining ancient databases just like me.

Still, they actually seemed interested.

A shriek cut through the gymnasium.

Followed by laughter.

Everyone turned to see the source, an increasingly embarrassed teenage girl at Dave’s booth.

Dave grinned, clapping his hands together. “And that, my friends, is why trust is the foundation of good therapy! You panicked, but look, you’re safe. You had a team to catch you. That’s how this works.” He spread his arms wide. “Now, who’s up next?”

Lanky Kid smirked and stepped forward, climbing onto the table with a confidence that told me he probably played sports. The rest of the group drifted toward Dave’s booth, caught up in the energy of the demonstration. Whatever momentum I had was gone.

Still, I noticed a few of them palmed one of my cards before walking away. That was enough.

The rest of the afternoon blurred by in a steady stream of conversations, handshakes, and nods of encouragement. By the time the event wrapped up, my throat was sore from talking, and my feet ached from standing. I packed up my booth, exchanged a few last words with Dave, and stepped outside into the cool evening air, grateful for the quiet.

I slumped into a seat on the bus, glad to be done for the day. The older kid from earlier sat across from me. I hadn’t even realized he rode this bus.

“You live near here?” I asked.

“Group home,” he muttered.

I nodded. A lot of kids his age were orphans. Most schoolchildren had been safe in rural areas when the outbreak hit, while their parents were working in cities. The lucky ones got placed in homes like his. The unlucky ones… well, we didn’t talk about that.

He stared out the window. “I don’t wanna go back tonight.”

I didn’t ask why. With most of the zombies gone, humans were back to being the real monsters. I nodded and said, “You can come to my place for dinner. At least get a full stomach before going back.”

In the old world, that would have been weird. Now, not so much. The apocalypse had forced communities to be more trusting, more reliant on each other. Another unforeseen benefit.

We got off at my stop and started walking. The streetlights buzzed faintly overhead, casting long shadows on the cracked sidewalk. There were more than a few flickering, but that they were on at all was a step back toward normalcy.

“You were around for the Year of the Dead, right?” the kid asked.

I nodded. “Yeah.”

“What were the zombies like?”

I thought about it. “Messy,” I said finally. “Everyone remembers the attacks, the chases. But the worst part was the smell. A city full of them in the summer? You could smell it for miles.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Gross.”

“Yeah. You never forget it.”

He hesitated, then said, “There’s a story about a zombie living in the woods near here. People say it survived by eating animal brains instead of human ones.”

I snorted. “Every small town has that story. There are probably a few dozen zombies left in the entire country. If there were still as many zombies out there as there are stories, the government wouldn’t just let them roam. They’d be capturing them.”

“Why would they capture them instead of killing them?”

I shrugged. “Some pharma company is probably trying to figure out how the virus lets them live without a beating heart. They want to separate that part from the whole ‘eating people’ thing.”

The kid shuddered. “Why risk another outbreak by keeping anything infected alive?”

“Because someone, somewhere, sees a way to make a fortune off it.”

He gave me a skeptical look. “You think that’s it?”

“That, and scientists think they’re close to a cure.”

“A cure?”

“Sort of. They’ve been experimenting on rats. They say if the brain and body aren’t too damaged, they can restore normal behavior. Zombie rats go back to acting like regular rats.”

He frowned. “So, if they can do it with rats, they think they can do it with people?”

“That’s the idea. If someone didn’t take too much damage—no missing limbs, no rotting beyond repair—they could be… brought back. Their sanity, at least.”

“But their body would still be dead?”

I shrugged again. “Depends on your definition of dead. No heartbeat, but if they can think again, what’s the difference?”

The kid looked unsettled. “That’s freaky.”

“So is everything else in the world now.”

He kicked at a loose rock on the pavement. “Do you think they’ll figure out how to make people immortal?”

“For a high enough price? Maybe.”

He huffed a quiet laugh. “So, it’s all about money.”

“It always is.” I glanced at him. “People doing things for money is literally what got the country back in shape. I don’t know what it says about us, but capitalism is ingrained in our DNA now.”

After a year of horror movie chaos followed by two years of dystopian, Mad Max-style lawlessness, Uncle Sam had finally got things back in order.

The banks were the first to come back online.

Say what you will about them, but those rich fuckers were motivated.

It didn’t matter that trillions had vanished in an instant; savings, credit, crypto, every digital dollar erased like a bad gamble. They rebuilt fast, got their system running, and suddenly, we had a hierarchy again.

The zombies had still been out there, dying off slowly, but the real killers were supply shortages, disease, and plain old human violence.

We reached my house, the porch creaking under our steps.

“Come on in,” I said, unlocking the door.

The moment we stepped inside, he hesitated. “It’s cold in here.”

I shrugged, shutting the door behind us. “Yeah, I tend to run hot. If I don’t keep the thermostat way down, I’ll sweat through my clothes.”

We walked into the kitchen, and I pulled open a drawer near the sink, rummaging through it. “I think I’ve got some pasta or maybe canned soup. You good with that?”

“Yeah, sure.” He wandered toward the fridge.

“Grab a drink if you want.”

His hand was on the fridge handle when I wrapped my fingers around the hammer buried under a mess of utensils in the drawer.

Two steps.

One swing.

A dull thunk echoed through the kitchen as the hammer struck the back of his head. He crumpled instantly. I barely caught him before he hit the floor, dragging his limp form toward the basement door.

I used to strike right when the door closed, keeping a weapon on the coat rack behind the door, but I’ve learned it’s better to get them in the kitchen first. It’s closer to the basement and blood was easier to clean off linoleum than carpet.

I pulled open the heavy metal door and shoved him down the stairs. His body hit the concrete with a thud. With my first year’s salary, I converted the basement into a massive, refrigerated chamber.

A soft movement from the shadows.

Melissa.

Her body was so cold, her movements sluggish, almost human. Not the jerky sprint the others had. She stepped forward, staring down at the fresh offering with dull, unfocused eyes, as if some distant part of her still remembered what it meant to hesitate.

If the outbreak had started in December instead of April, things might have played out differently. The northern cities wouldn’t have been slaughtered so quickly. The first wave would’ve been slower, easier to contain. We might have had time to fight back before everything fell apart.

That first summer was hell. When the infected could run, when their muscles were fresh and strong, they swept through the streets like a flash flood. Packs of them, faster than anyone expected, overwhelming entire neighborhoods in hours. Cities collapsed in days. It wasn’t just the sheer numbers, it was their speed and coordination. No one stood a chance.

Winter changed everything. Once the temperature dropped, so did they. Their bodies stiffened, their reactions dulled. They still moved, still hunted, but only in short bursts. Most of the time, they simply wandered, conserving what little energy they had left. It wasn’t the military or the government that saved the remnants of civilization. It was the cold.

By January, the only ones still dying from zombie attacks were the extremely dumb or the extremely unlucky.

I watched as she fed.

She had learned, over time, how to eat. Her fingers pressed against the wound I had made with the hammer, digging in, finding the soft point to crack the skull.

“Work was great today, hon,” I said, my voice calm. “Didn’t have to stay cooped up in the office. Got to go on a trip to the school, met some bright kids. I think a couple of them might intern under me this year.”

She made no sign that she heard me. But I still talked to her. It helped me pretend this was a normal family dinner.

Talking myself into it the first time took effort. The hundredth time? I think I ate ramen while she ate the poor soul I’d met that day.

I’m not a bad person. I’m just a survivor. Dave would understand.

People are good at justifying their actions. No one is the bad guy in their own story. I’m self-aware enough to know the things I’m doing are horrendous, but I allow the justifications to take hold.

They will help me keep going, so one day Melissa and I can be together again.

Other than a small bite on her hand, she didn’t have any major wounds. A prime candidate for recovery.

It wasn’t a sprinting horde or a violent struggle that got her. It was a child.

She had been searching for supplies in an abandoned house when she heard soft crying from behind a closet door. A miracle, she had thought at the time. A survivor, alone and afraid. She had approached slowly, speaking in hushed, reassuring tones, promising that everything would be okay.

She’d forgotten, either through carelessness or optimism, that zombies could still occasionally make basic human noises. A scream, a sob, even a laugh.

The second she opened the door, it was on her. Small, frail, no older than six, but it didn’t need strength, just teeth. It latched onto her wrist before she could react, its tiny fingers clutching at her sleeve as it bit down.

She had killed it, of course. A quick, panicked motion, sending its fragile body tumbling backward. But the damage had already been done.

One mistake. One moment of misplaced hope. That was all it took.

It happened in November of the Year of the Dead. She was sick for a couple of months and made me promise to kill her, preferably in her sleep before she turned. I promised I would.

I was lying.

I had already made a vow to protect her in sickness and in health.

She died in January. By then, I knew if I kept her cold, I could keep her. We went through many iterations of the basement since then. A refrigerated truck I stole was first, then a freezer in an abandoned restaurant. All the while, killing someone about once a month to keep her from fully starving.

Eventually, though, I needed something more permanent. Something stable. The truck broke down. The restaurant freezer lost power. Each time, I had to move her, risking discovery, risking decay.

When word came out that the government would pay handsomely for anyone with programming skills, I volunteered immediately. Not out of patriotism. Not out of some desire to help rebuild. I had my own reasons.

I negotiated my first year’s salary up front—they obliged, desperate for anyone who could keep their crumbling digital infrastructure from falling apart completely. I used every cent to buy what I needed: solar panels, backup generators, industrial-grade insulation. Anything to keep the basement cold. As cold as possible. As long as possible.

Because if the scientists ever figured out the cure, Melissa would need to be ready.

Until then, I keep her fed.

People trust each other more now. They have to. It’s how we survived.

It’s how she’ll survive, too.

Until next time, remember to take care of yourselves.