Mrs. O'Reilly

Alessia and her best friend Maria were playing in Alessia’s driveway, like they did every Saturday. They were jumping rope, smiling and laughing. Suddenly, Maria tripped and fell on the ground. The girls giggled and Alessia helped Maria up, making sure that she was alright. 

“This is no time to be giggling girls,” a voice said. Alessia turned with a start, and saw Mrs. O’Reilly leaning over them. She was an older woman who lived across the street from Alessia. Her husband had died about five years ago, and ever since then, Mrs. O’Reilly had been known as the town crazy. Her bushy grey hair, bifocals, pink robe and matching bunny slippers certainly didn’t help her case. Mrs. O’Reilly never wore actual clothes, even to the grocery store she would only wear her bathrobe and bunny slippers. Sometimes she even walked around with pink curlers in her hair. 

And no matter where she was or what she was doing, she always found a way to warn someone about the zombies. Today, while taking her fluffy white dog Winnie on a walk, Alessia and Maria are the victims. 

“They’re coming,” she told them. “I’ve seen it. I’ve had countless dreams about tomorrow, June 26th. It’s the day the dead will rise again.” Alessia and Maria just stared at each other, unsure of what to say. 

“We’ll be careful Mrs. O,” Maria said. 

“Oh, it’s more than just being careful,” Mrs. O'Reilly said. “Y’all need to be prepared. I’m telling you girls right now, you need to start stocking up. You’re going to need plenty of canned food and plenty of weapons. If your parents don’t have guns, tell ‘em they need to go out and buy some. I have a whole storage locker full of ‘em. I’d be happy to have a few people take sanctuary in my basement but, of course, I can only take so many.” 

Mrs. O’Reilly eyes wandered onto the road, as if she’d seen something unsettling. Winnie began to growl. 

“Not yet,” Mrs. O'Reilly said. “But soon.” Her eyes returned to the girls in the driveway and she smiled. “Have a lovely day girls.” With that, she continued walking down the sidewalk, stopping to talk to other neighbours about the undead rising again. Alessia and Maria couldn’t help but laugh. 

“I think she’s senile,” Maria said. 

“What’s senile?” Alessia asked. 

“It’s when old people go crazy,” Maria explained. Alessia giggled. How could Mrs. O’Reilly possibly believe that there was going to be some sort of zombie apocalypse? Especially in their tiny town. The girls knew that nobody believed her, and they likely never would. After all, zombies weren’t real, right?

That night when Maria finally went home, Alessia couldn’t sleep. She’d laughed with her friend about the crazy old lady, but secretly, Alessia was worried. She wanted to tell her parents, but she was afraid they’d laugh at her. So, she tossed and turned at night, kept awake by unsettling images of grey faces with rotting flesh. When she finally did fall asleep, she had a horrible nightmare. 

She was drawing with chalk outside with Maria, just like any other Saturday. Then, the sky began to get dark and cloudy. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Alessia heard Mrs. O’Reilly voice boom in the sky: “The end is coming, the dead will live again, and the living won’t stand a chance.” Alessia searched for the voice, but Mrs. O’Reilly was nowhere in site. 

Suddenly, Maria screamed. Alessia turned to see a zombie slowly limping toward them. It was just like how she’d imagined: tattered, bloody clothes, grey skin and sunken eyes, and rotting flesh that made it look like their skin was peeling off. Alessia wanted to vomit. It was hideous. And although it was slow, it was getting closer by the second. She grabbed Maria’s hand and they ran across the street to Mrs. O’Reilly. 

Alessia rang the doorbell furiously, praying that the old lady would answer. When the door finally opened, a zombified Mrs. O’Reilly answered. Alessia screamed. She looked just like the other zombie across the street. She groaned and reached her decayed hand out, like she wanted to grab Alessia. She didn’t know what to do. She felt like she was glued to the porch, unable to move. Maria looked the same. She stood as still as a statue. 

Alessia could do nothing except stand there, as Mrs. O’Reilly’s cold, clammy hands grasped her arms. Her zombie teeth sank into her neck and-

She woke up. Alessia felt her neck and, sure enough, it was perfectly fine. It was just a dream. She walked downstairs and felt obligated to tell her parents about her dream. Until yesterday, Mrs. O’Reilly craziness had never bothered her. But she’d told the girls that June 26th, today, would be the day that the zombies would attack. The thought of it made Alessia’s stomach churn. 

“Oh, honey,” her mom said after Alessia had confessed her fears. “Don’t worry about Mrs. O’Reilly, she has dementia. You probably don’t remember this since you were so young, but shortly after her husband died, she went through a very similar thing. She went to every store in town and put up flyers about this global pandemic that was supposedly going to happen in two weeks. She said she had dreams about the virus wiping out millions of people, many of them in this very town. People were so freaked out, they bought all kinds of masks and hazmat suits and toilet paper for some reason. 

“The whole thing was just so strange, but people were truly terrified. And you know what happened in two weeks?” Alessia shook her head. “Nothing. Ever since then, Mrs. O’Reilly has had a new story every month about some kind of end-of-the-world disaster. And you know how many times she’s been right? Zero.” 

Alessia knew that this wasn’t the first time that Mrs. O’Reilly had predicted some big catastrophe and it had never happened. Just last month, she’d told Alessia that killer bees were going to swarm their town. At the time, Alessia had been able to brush it off, knowing that she was just a crazy old lady. But for some reason, this felt different. Alessia had a gut feeling that this time, Mrs. O’Reilly might actually be right. 

The sound of the phone ringing made Alessia jump. Her mom answered, and after a minute, she hung up and told Alessia that Maria wanted to come over. Soon enough, the girls were playing tag outside like any other day, and Alessia had forgotten all about the zombies. That is, until she saw one. Straight from her nightmares, just as she’d imagined, an adult male zombie began lumbering toward her and Maria. 

At first she thought she was dreaming again. She had to be, right? There was no way this was real. Absolutely no way. 

“Die, you filthy creature!” Alessia turned to see Mrs. O’Reilly barreling down the street with a shotgun, shooting blindly at the zombie. She’d never been so happy to see her crazy neighbor. After several failed attempts, she finally hit it in the head and it collapsed on Alessia’s front lawn. She stared in amazement at the crazy old lady. Before she could get out a word about how cool Mrs. O’Reilly was, more zombies approached. 

Neighbours screamed, children ran inside, doors were locked and curtains were drawn. Alessia saw one zombie walk right up behind Mrs. O’Reilly. 

“Mrs O!” she screamed. “Behind you!” For an old lady, her reflexes were pretty darn good. She turned and shot the zombie down in a heartbeat. 

“See kids,” she said, resting the shotgun on her back. “Zombies ain’t that hard to kill. All you got to remember is-” Mrs. O’Reilly never finished her sentence. A zombie jumped out of nowhere and took a huge bite out of the old lady’s neck. Mrs. O’Reilly screamed, then crumpled to the ground. Alessia was horrified to see her former neighbour’s body turn rotten. 

Her eyes became sunken in, her hands were gnarled and bony, and her teeth were bared. She fixed her eyes on Alessia, and slowly stood up. Then, zombie Mrs. O’Reilly reached her grey hand out to Alessia and grabbed her arm. The last thing Alessia remembered was the horrible feeling of Mrs. O’Reilly’s teeth sinking into her neck.