The Final chapter of a Lit Fic Zombie Novel, written by a Professor of Creative Writing at Goomfloof University. “No, I haven’t read any other Zombie novels, I don’t read *genre* my good man. All MY novels have to have ‘A Novel” on the cover, so people don’t mistake them for eggplants or Shower curtains.”
Chapter 45
The great atrium of the library should have been silent. It should have been heavy with the enforced noiselessness of the intellect at work, the mental mastication of centuries of written wisdom. Instead, the mindless masses pounded their brainless fists against the ancient oak doors, their only thoughts of filling remorseless stomachs, of consuming life as theirs had already been consumed.
Samson glanced at the doors.
-theyll be through in no time.
Finolla picked up a chair.
-Ill be ready for them when they do.
Once again Oscar blew out a huge sigh. The aged, but still handsome, professor clearly resented his role as the sole voice of reason, but he had long ago become accustomed to the fact that his was the only intellect capable of wrestling with the onslaught of vapidity that ran amok in the modern world.
-Samson
He said
-you won’t find the answers to our problems in that catalogue. And Finolla, your poor chair will be no defence against the horde when they break down that door.
The other two survivors gazed at him in wonder as he stood up from his seat. Though he was very nearly six feet tall, he looked taller in these last moments of humanity. Perhaps it was his towering genius that leant him height, perhaps just a trick of the afternoon sunlight slanting through dustmotes to strike his elegant grey hair. He paused for a moment, looking at Finolla and remembering all those grad students who had fallen in love with him during the course of his educational career. Those poor children, who may have been blessed with the bodies of athletes and dancers, but whose semi-formed minds could never hope to keep his affections, let alone his attention. Each one had to be regretfully put aside, and they would inevitably “report” him for “sexual assault” or “stalking”. Well, those days were behind him now. He faced his two companions again.
-that mob out there won’t be impressed by violence. They won’t respond to reasoned argument. There’s no secret escape route hidden in these books for you to find, samson.
Samson looked close to tears. Finolla too, turned her back. Probably trying to suppress her attraction to the professor.
-well then professor
Asked Samson
-what can we do.
The professor smiled. As always, the solution that was so simple to him completely eluded the others around him. Only his mind could slice through the foliage of the nonsensical world to the path of truth.
-it’s simple, my friends. Those creatures lack intellect, while we can still think. We won’t overpower them from without, but if we absorb as much knowledge as we can, our very mind will overcome theirs from within. They may take our physical beings from us, but our mental processes will take them over.
The two exchanged looks.
-really professor?
Asked Finolla, ever the skeptic. He smiled, beneficently.
-of course, my dear. Here, a first course for your mental meals. I happened to have these with me.
He passed them copies of his own first book ‘The Garden of Aritosthenes’, a brilliant but overlooked work that laid bare the essence of the modern male and his role in society despite the vicissitudes of the cruel “feminist” movement. He took his own, well-worn copy from a pocket and read again the dedication he had written to himself in the front of the book. He smiled again and together, they turned the first page as the first sounds of splintering came from the doors.
When they broke, they would not be letting hunger in, but letting genius out.
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