Ice Cream, You Scream, A Short Story About Kindness

Annabeth Walker, who was born blind, had absolutely no idea that the apocalypse had started. She had asked if she could go to the mall and was taken there by her parents. Age twelve, her first destination was the Lego store. She was confused when her parents mysteriously disappeared. “Mom? Dad?” she called. No response. “They must have gone to another store,” she concluded. Unbeknownst to her, they had contracted a terrible disease that lured them away from her. After a while of playing with the Legos, she decided she was going to use some of her money to buy ice cream. The ice cream shop, however, was on the other side of the mall. “Ah well, time for an adventure,” she muttered cheerfully to herself. She felt her way to the shop door and opened it. The fresh air cooled her briefly. Carefully, she stepped away from the walls. Using the senses she had developed, she wandered towards her goal. It felt like a quiet, peaceful day for her. With no clue that a disease was spreading, nor that people were dying horrendous deaths, she smiled and hummed along to the music she was listening to through the cat-eared headphones she’d gotten for her birthday.

She stopped in several stores along the way. One smelled a lot like perfume and flowers. She almost choked in that store and needless to say, she left that store quickly. Twice, she stubbed her toes on benches. At about the halfway mark of her journey, she heard a loud gurgling sound over her music. She paused the song, took of the headphones, letting them hang around her neck, and listened for the sound again. It came again, much louder. “It must be right beside me!” she thought. “Hello?” she called.

After a minute, a somewhat gurgling response was heard to her left. “Braaaaainss!” it said.

“Oh! Hi!” Annabeth replied, “Who are you?”

“Braaaaaaaaaaaaainsss!”

“Interesting name.”

“Graah!”

“I was going to get ice cream, would you like to come with me, Brains?”

“Iiiicccce Creeeeeeeammmmmmmm?”

“Yes, ice cream, you can come. I have enough money for both of us.”

“Gurgh…”

“Okay,” she said smiling, not knowing she was talking to a zombie girl about her age. “It’s this way, follow me.” She suddenly noticed a foul smell. She thought better than to mention it. The journey continued. Brain’s continuous groaning told Annabeth that she was still following her. As they went, Annabeth, not knowing what they were, met and befriended more and more Zombies. They all seemed equally interested in ice cream, even though she had told them that she didn’t know if she had enough money for all thirty-two of them. They groaned, moaned, and stumbled along after her. And she led them happily. At last the reached the ice cream shop. She walked carefully inside, avoiding tables and bumping into a few chairs along the way.

She stopped as she felt the counter in front of her. “Hello,” she said. The groans stopped, the Zombies were waiting for their ice cream.

A man in his forties peeked over the counter to see a blind girl and a huge hoard of Zombies standing in his shop. Terrified, armed poorly, and confused at what he saw, he replied, “What do you want?”

“What do most people want when they come in here?” Annabeth answered.

“Uh, recently, shelter. Before it all started, the best ice cream in town.”

“Alright,” she said, “I would like thirty-three small strawberry cones please?”

“Um, yes miss.” He stood cautiously and began scooping and handing out ice cream cones.

When she had gotten hers, Annabeth said, “Thank you sir.”

Utterly bewildered, the man responded, “You are welcome.” Suddenly the loud groans started again, morphing slowly into regular human-sounding groans. The man stared in shock as the zombies, after eating their ice cream, became human again. He looked at his scoop, then at the ice cream, then at the ex-zombies. Then the cycle repeated.

Meanwhile, Annabeth’s ex-zombie parents found her eating ice-cream with an ex-zombie group of kids around her. She on the other hand, talked cheerfully to the kids. The kids listened in the normal fashion in which average children listen. Annabeth, though blind, in showing kindness to those most would have been cruel to, cured the entire human race of the disease that caused the apocalypse and showed herself to be above-average.