At fifteen, Billy was a bit of a loner outside of the home. Most of his classmates were dying to go on trips for spring break, but Billy was still mourning the loss of his grandpa who had just passed away. The family was very close. They would go fishing year round, even on the ice in the winter. Sometimes they would share a meal and listen to the ball game on the radio as they sat on the front porch facing the dock. His grandpa was not only Billy’s guardian since his parents passed, but his best friend as well. They were inseparable. Everywhere his grandpa went, Billy was sure to follow. Everything his grandpa did, Billy tried to emulate. They even dressed alike.

  While Billy loaded his fishing gear and lunch on the boat, he realized that he had forgotten his lunch cooler. After grabbing it out of the refrigerator, he smiled thinking of all of the good times he had spent with his grandpa and how much he missed him. He then proceeded to head back to the boat. After untying the rope from the dock and securing it, he lifted the anchor and began to row out into the lake. A few hours had passed and the sun was almost directly overhead, Billy decided to take a break to have some lunch and maybe put on his grandpa’s old fishing hat to shield him from the sun.

  As he opened his lunch cooler, Billy lifted his grandpa’s deceased head out of it and sat it upright on top of the ice and the cooler lid on top to shield the sun. Refrigeration had preserved it well. As he took his fishing knife from the cooler, he sliced off part of his grandpa’s ear and cheek. While Billy sat in the boat, chewing on the ear of his grandpa, he knew something wasn’t right. He wanted his grandpa to enjoy the day as well, so he took a couple of fish hooks and connected each cheek to the side of his grandfather’s head to form a smile.

  “There, that’s how I remember him. Grandpa was always smiling when we went fishing”, Billy said out loud as he kicked back to relax and drifted along.

  “Maybe tomorrow, mom and dad can come, if there’s enough left”, Billy once again said out loud as he smiled and tilted his grandpa’s old fishing cap.

   It had been just passed a year since the outbreak and Billy was bitten by a zombie at school. Although he killed his parents and his grandpa for their flesh and brains, he still loved them and remembered the good times instead of the chaos that the world had become. He didn’t want to kill them, but the zombie virus grew too strong. Billy knew that eventually the virus would decay his body and he would slowly deteriorate, but he wanted to spend every last second he had with his family.

   They tried to keep Billy under control. They even tried to lead a normal life, but eventually his mother came too close. As his father attempted to save his mother, he too was bitten. When Billy’s grandpa came home, he was horrified, but he knew the family dynamic was ruined. However, he loved his family so much that he removed his parents’ heads to prevent them from turning. He dismembered and refrigerated them for preservation.

   Billy’s grandpa wanted to be near him for as long as he could, so he used restraints to keep him at bay and would only feed Billy small pieces at a time. Just enough to satiate his zombie desires. Unfortunately, a few days ago, Grandpa came too close. Billy bit his bit him during a feeding. He was horrified at what he had done. However,  just as he did as a child, Billy tried to emulate what his grandpa had done.