THE LAST FINAL GIRL,
by Lori R. LopezA black and gray man like an old-time photo depicting
the impoverished lifted watery eyes bleeding tears, dim
and dull as the surface of stagnant ponds.
He spoke in harsh paranoid whispers, confiding his
worst secret. Clutching my left shoulder, in torment,
muscles of his face screwed tight . . .
“Nobody gets those monsters, ya know? Where they
come from. Why they’re here. Culling! Reaping!
They took my sweet Beulah.”
Heads bowed, we shared an endless aching interval
of despair. “I’m sorry.” It was a human thing to offer —
far from the spires of civilization . . .
The littered concrete corridors of diseased battle zones
prowled by relentless husks of shambling former people;
vacant shells with voracious hunger.
“Ate her like savage beast
