Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box

by Mira Grant

Genres: Horror; Sci-fi Anthologies & Collections; Dystopian

Synopsis

A new short story from Mira Grant, the author of Feed. Every week five friends get together to play a game-- a game they call the Apocalypse Game. It's a fun time with chips and beer and plotting the end of the world. Except this time, one of them is missing and the stakes are higher than ever before.

Word count: ~3,900

Newsflesh Short Fiction

Apocalypse Scenario #683: The Box

Countdown

San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats

How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea

The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell

Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus

For more from Mira Grant, check out:

Newsflesh

Feed

Deadline

Blackout

Parasitology

Parasite

Symbiont

Chimera

Release date: April 18, 2011

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 21

Sample

Andy, where’s the beer?”

“Look in the crisper.”

Ryan paused before asking the obvious: “Why is the beer in the crisper?”

“Because grain’s a vegetable,” said Elsa, sensibly enough, as she dumped tortilla chips into a yellow plastic bowl. “That means beer is good for you.”

“I don’t even know what to say to that,” said Ryan, before digging a beer out from under a wilted head of lettuce. “Is Mike coming?”

“Mike’s coming, Cole isn’t.” Andy picked up the tray of sandwiches, pausing to kiss Elsa on the cheek before exiting the kitchen. The tray of sandwiches was placed ceremoniously on the dining room table, next to a veggie platter, a bowl of salsa, and a second bowl filled with peanut M&M’s. He glanced back as Ryan followed him to the table, adding, “Before you ask, Sandi’s coming. She just had to stop and pick up some root beer.”

“Right.” Ryan sat in his usual chair, cracking open his first beer of the evening. He’d stop after the third, when Sandi’s nagging became too much. . .