"Not the End" - March 27, 2025
The end of civilization may not be the end of everything...
Every Thursday, Silver Gecko Publishing highlights one of my stories, either a work of short fiction, a novel, or an audiobook. This week’s selection is an excerpt from the novelette NOT THE END, available on Kindle, and on audiobook.
Of all the monsters that have populated literature and movies over the decades, I have been least interested in zombies. However, the genre seems ever-popular, with successful franchises like The Walking Dead and feature films like World War Z, Warm Bodies, and Train to Busan being only a few of the successful zombie products.
NOT THE END was my first stab at a zombie story. However, I’ll let you in on a little secret... the zombies are a symbol for something else in the world.
Yeah, that’s not a great secret. Ever since George A. Romero made the zombies in Dawn of the Dead represent slavish consumerism, the masking of an element of culture with zombism is nothing new. However, I have yet to hear anyone figure out what my symbol is. So if you have an idea, shoot me a message and ask me if you’re right.
In the end, I think NOT THE END still works on its own as a kick-ass zombie story, and it has a twist to it that I’ve not seen often in zombie lore (though the 2018 film The Cured got pretty close).
If you like this story, check out my other zombie installments, including GOBBLE on Kindle and NOT EVEN A MOUSE on Kindle and on audiobook…
-Kevin Carr
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