(Something something something daily posting streak something something standard disclaimers. My schedule is tighter than usual because IPSC is tonight and runs right up until midnight. Anyway, here’s my logic with posting this: given how long I’ve committed to posting, I’m probably going to have to dig deeply enough into my reserves to include it, and to be authentic I can’t edit the story more anyway, so I might as well do it now. (Also maybe this will pressure me into finishing and posting one of the real short stories in my blog draft folder, the same way I feel pressured to make a good puzzle after posting a bad one.) I’m not even going to reread my story because I don’t like cringing at my own writing without being able to edit it, but hopefully that makes it bad enough to be entertaining. If you didn’t know, this was for an MIT preorientation program application. Tell me if it’s bad to repost application stuff. I hope not.)
(Oops this introduction is about as long as the actual story now.)
- Tell us a short story in the available space below. Your inspiration is only one word: nuclear. Go!
Breathlessly, Dr. Carver dashed into the nuclear plant. “Okay, team, what’s the emergency?”
The engineer at the helm, Dr. Perkins, turned around and said, “Oh goodness, we’re so glad you’re here, one of the reactors’ containment centers failed and there’s nuclear waste all over the city and we’ve got a raging hoard of shambling NUCLEAR ZOMBIES outside the plant coming in!”
“Jesus Christ. That —” Carver narrowed her eyes briefly, then continued, “you know that’s not how nuclear plants work. Not how nuclear anything works. Is this a stupid prank or something?”
A laugh. “Okay, doc, sorry, that wasn’t funny. A couple of the containment systems are giving us a warning signal, but we got two of them by the time you got here, and we have enough redundancy that it shouldn’t be anything to worry about. Still, we wanted to be safe. This one over here, number 4, seems to have the most serious —”
Dr. Perkins turned around to point at a flashing light. It only took an instant before Carver dropped her grim look and was on top of him clawing for cranial matter.
“Silly Perkins. Zombies don’t shamble.”
Then: “Well, I’m glad I concentrated in acting for my humanities and social sciences studies back in college.”