Tonight’s the night when the much-anticipated television series Fear the Walking Dead—a spinoff series to the hugely successful The Walking Dead—makes its debut on AMC. Set before the events of TWD, this prequel series will detail the early days and weeks of the zombie-virus outbreak, showing its spread across California as society falls apart and the streets fill with ambulatory corpses hungering for flesh. (If I remember my Walking Dead continuity correctly, this would be the period during which TWD’s lead character, Deputy Rick Grimes, lies in a coma in a Georgia hospital, recovering from a gunshot wound.)
Speaking of the walking dead, are you aware that I once wrote my own take on the zombie apocalypse, in the form of a short story? “Laundry Day” is the tale of a not-so-loveable guy named Josh Kosinki who, late one night, decides to take his growing pile of dirty clothes over to the local Laundromat—only to become an eyewitness to the start of a zombie uprising. It first appeared in 2007, in the Padwolf Books anthology The Dead Walk Again!, then was reprinted in Books of the Dead Press’s 2010 anthology, Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 2. It garnered quite a bit of praise from reviewers:
“Laced with a brutal humor and some seriously gory violence, this one is a slaughter-fest crowd pleaser for sure. Action from the get-go, with a surprising twist ending that I really didn’t see coming.”—Paperback Horror
“‘Laundry Day’ puts a nice twist on the ‘folks are the worst of all monsters’ trope.”
—Necroscope: The Australian Zombie Review Blog
“I friggin’ love that story!”—James Roy Daley, author of Terror Town and 13 Drops of Blood
Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 2 is still on sale, so follow the link to its page at Amazon. Along with “Laundry Day,” you’ll find stories by such notable horror writers as Mort Castle, Tim Waggoner, Nate Kenyon, and Cody Goodfellow. Order a copy today so you’ll have something to read between episodes of Fear the Walking Dead.
