“Dinner’s almost ready,” Sawyer called out to his guests. “Just give me a few more minutes.”

He whirled around the kitchen, eyes wide, face flushed. He’d never been much of a cook, preferring either Dominoes pizza or the Great Wall’s sweet and sour chicken. But when he had to cook, he went all out.

“Just finishing up,” Sawyer told his guests. He slipped the roast out of the oven, not taking the cover off, not just yet. He carried it out to the dining room table, skirting the garbage on the floor. He wasn’t much of a house-keeper, either. Not these days.

“Sorry about the mess,” Sawyer said apologetically, setting the roast down at the table. His four guests eyed it hungrily, wordlessly. “I’ve been so busy, what with the downfall of civilization and all.” He laughed, a bit too loudly, and his green eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. “Be right back.”

Sawyer returned to the table with the potatoes and a pan of peas, along with the tea kettle. He set them down carefully, and began serving portions to his guests. The roast was a little tough, but the razor-edged carving knife cut through the flesh with ease.

“I might have cooked it a little too long,” Sawyer said, setting a portion down in front of a female guest. “Fingers are yours, right?”

His guest moaned hungrily, snatching the section of a human hand from the plate and cramming it in her mouth, smacking away hungrily. “Come on, now,” Sawyer laughed good-naturedly. “It hasn’t been that long, has it?”

He moved about the table, serving each of his guests in turn. They ignored the potatoes and peas, but absolutely savaged the meat, uttering low moans and grunts of pleasure as they gorged themselves.

“How is it?” Sawyer asked, sitting down at the head of his table. He’d saved the upper bicep for himself, the tastiest part. The zombies ignored him for the moment. Sawyer didn’t mind. As soon as they were finished, he’d have their undivided attention once more.

“Not bad,” he complimented himself, forking a bit into his mouth. It tasted like a little like chicken, a little like pork. Definitely a heavy, filling meat. He regarded his guests over his fork. “You know, if you’d all behave, I wouldn’t have to wire you to those chairs.”

As if seeing him for the first time, the zombie on Sawyer’s left, the remains of a man in a ragged suit, locked its watery yellow eyes on his throat and struggled against the wire holding it to the high-backed chair. Its arms were free, and it reached towards Sawyer, brushing his arms.

“Come on, now,” Sawyer told it. “You just ate. Hang on a few minutes, and I’ll see what I can come up with for desert.”

“I had the strangest day today,” Sawyer told his guests. The other zombies were finishing up their meals, and were staring hungrily at them. “I had to sneak into the supermarket through the back door. The place was so busy it took me forever to get those potatoes. I see none of you even bothered to eat them. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.”

One of the creatures, the corpse of a matronly older woman, moaned loudly, gnashing its ragged yellow teeth. “Stop interrupting me,” Sawyer snapped. “It’s downright rude. Don’t you have any manners at all? I might just reconsider the desert.”

Behind him, in the kitchen, something hit the floor with an almost musical crash. Sawyer set down his fork and wiped his lips daintily with his napkin. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said to his guests. “I’ll be right back.”

He pushed his chair back and headed back into the kitchen. “What the hell,” he began. There was a large zombie inside, the back door open, its unlocked latch seeming to mock Sawyer. “Damnit,” he said harshly. “Don’t you people ever knock?”

The zombie had been a big, powerful man in life. He still wore the shredded remnants of his garage coveralls. Sawyer placed his hands on the zombie’s broad chest, shoving it backwards.

The creature groaned, not moving, and Sawyer’s smile faded. “Now listen,” he said. “I don’t want any tr…”

The creature moaned again, grasping at Sawyer’s face. One of its filthy, ragged thumbnails found Sawyer’s eye and popped it like an over-ripe grape. Sawyer screamed stumbling backwards, clawing at his ruined eye as he staggered back through the doorway.

The zombie slurped the remains of Sawyer’s eye from its finger with an almost pleasant look on its face. It looked up, seeing the screaming Sawyer, and followed him into the dining room.

Sawyer staggered backwards, blinded by pain, tangling his feet and crashing to the table top, upsetting the tea kettle. Scalding tea sprayed across the table. Sawyer landed directly in front of the old woman’s corpse. She reached for him, and he rolled away, into the clutches of the suited corpse. The ex-business man clamped a cold blue hand onto Sawyer’s arm.

With a shriek, Sawyer tried to pull away. But the creature was too strong. It held him fast as the old lady and the other guests caught hold of him, ripping and tearing at his clothes, seeking the warm flesh beneath them.

The zombie from the kitchen staggered in, backlit buy the overhead lights. Sawyer thrashed vainly in the grip of his guests, screaming until his vocal cords threatened to burst as they sank their teeth into his exposed flesh, rending, tearing, eating him.

“NO!” Sawyer managed through a mouthful of blood. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this!” The big zombie leaned in, looking as if it were going to kiss him, and bit Sawyer’s tongue off with a snap of its jaws.

The last thought that made its way through Sawyer’s head, before the raving, bellowing pain washed away all conscious thought, was that his complaint wasn’t all that unique. Millions of people all around the world, victims of the zombie plague, must have thought the same thing at the moment of their demise.

It really wasn’t supposed to end like this.

But at least he wasn’t going to die on an empty stomach.