Sunday Short: Becca at the End of the World by Shira Lipkin

I pull her into my arms and she falls apart, huge gasping gulping sobs, and I fall apart along with her — I don’t have to be strong for her this time, not now. This is slow, this is so slow, this is agonizing, but I cannot kill my daughter, not when she is still my daughter. Even though the grey is creeping up to her shoulder, down to her wrist. Even though she has begun to reek.

The Walking Dead came back this week and I feel like I've got zombies on the brain after it's first good episode in a while. It was kind of nice that it coincided pretty well with me reading Becca at the End of the World by Shira Lipkin. A really lovely mother-daughter story that plays out against a backdrop of the apocalypse, Lipkin captures beautifully the sort of intensity that comes with any sort of loss, particularly the sudden, undead kind. It's really good.

You can read Becca at the End of the World over at The Mary Sue.