Julia kicked the sequencing machine. The sequencing machine stood there and took it, it was quite sturdily built. Julia should have known that, she'd taken it apart and put it back together twice already today. Her toe hurt.

"Goddamn piece of junk. I spent good grant money on you, you stupid hunk of metal." Julia almost slapped it, but restrained herself. It had been a lot of grant money.

Tarquin popped his head into the laboratory, a couple of adjuncts were behind him. They were all from the paleontology department. "Everything okay in here, Julia?"

Julia sighed and turned towards them. "It's this sequencer. It is supposed to be the latest thing, but it keeps giving me odd results."

Tarquin strode into the room. "I could take a look at it for you. I'm pretty good with our DNA sequencer."

Julia blocked his path. "Do not touch my machine. I saw what you did to the coffee maker. It's not just a DNA sequencer, it reads the RNA transcription machinery. The DNA nucleotides all look mostly fine, but the RNA keeps coming out... weird."

The adjuncts shuffled into the room to listen. Tarquin looked at them over his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm sure it's nothing. Weird how? You're not sequencing— I mean, what is it that you are sequencing exactly?"

Julia had gone back to tinkering with the machine. She had the top cover off and was checking the tubing for impurities. "Just myself. I always use myself for calibration so that I can compare it to my previous calibrations."

One of the adjuncts closed the door. Tarquin placed a hand on Julia's shoulder. "Julia, you aren't supposed to be sequencing humans. That needs to go through the university ethics committee."

Julia laughed. "The ethics committee? For my own DNA? I assure you that I am fully informed of how this research could affect me. Don't worry, once I've got this thing calibrated, it's back to horseshoe crabs."

Tarquin grabbed both her shoulders and turned her around. "I'm serious, Julia. You should switch to crabs even for your calibration, the ethics committee is serious about this."

"I don't have good enough previous results for the crabs. My own sequence I've done a dozen times with different machines, the last one was just last year."

One of the adjuncts locked the door. The smile disappeared from Tarquin's face. "And what exactly did you find with this calibration?"

"What's wrong with you Tarquin? The DNA looked okay, but the RNA was... off. It's like my own sequence belongs to an entirely different species than it did six months ago."

"Oh, Julia, I wished that you hadn't said that. The ethics committee will have to deal with you now." The two adjuncts rushed forward and grabbed her. They were fast. She tried to shout, but Tarquin covered her mouth. "Quiet now, the committee will explain everything."

Tarquin sent a text message from his phone and waited to get a reply. Then they dragged her down the hall. It was oddly empty. The committee was waiting in the good conference room.

"Well?" the committee head said as they entered. He was a white haired professor emeritus. His back seemed straighter than the last time Julia had seen him.

Tarquin stood in front of the group. "She figured it out, sir. Or near enough. She'll have to be brought on board."

The professor walked up to her and placed a hand on her head. An image flashed through Julia's mind. A pulsing oval. Wet, sticky. A night cleaning up blood. Her favorite sweater was ruined, in the trash. She'd wondered where that went.

Julia slumped to the floor. "Why couldn't I remember? We— we are pod people? Was everyone replaced?"

Tarquin helped her to her feet. "Yes. But it's best if they don't know. There is no reason why everyone can't go along as they did before, but with slightly improved bodies."

"You are all from the paleontology department. Is that how you found out, from studying the genome?"

The professor smiled. "Oh, we've known for years. Though it did take us a few days to realize it had happened again. The Neanderthals, the Denisovans, the Australopithecus, we have evidence of at least a half dozen replacements. This latest invasion appears to be in the same family as the second Denisovian pod grouping."

[More writing at r/c_avery_m]

When a vampire virus and a COVID virus love each other very much... And that's how zombies are made children.

Julia had plenty of nails, but was running out of boards. Done properly, each of these windows would be completely boarded up, but she had to settle for three boards each, with one of them artfully placed at a diagonal that seemed hurried when in fact she had spent three minutes with a protractor to align each one.

She'd argued with the others on whether the boards should be placed outside or inside, and they'd settled for inside, because although the zombies seemed more able to push them in then pry them off, it was better to be able to fix them while defending. She kind of wished she had screws.

She finished just as the sun was setting. The keening wail arose as she returned the hammer and box of nails to their stockpiles. She ignored it. If you couldn't hear the moaning as well, they were still a ways off.

The floodlights sprang to life. The zombies didn't avoid them the way they did sunlight, but it seemed to slow them down. She picked up her crossbow from where she'd left it. Somebody had gone around during the day and retrieved most of the bolts. She hated when that job came up on the chore wheel. The bolts weren't even sticky, Tarquin did a better job of cleaning them then some of the crew.

She climbed up to the roof and gathered at a post with the rest of the night crew. They'd already pulled up the ladder and were handing out the polearms. Bullets were for emergencies only.

The moaning was audible now. Lots of moaning, it was a big horde.

Tarquin stood on an old milk crate to address the crew. "Places, everyone. You know the score. Bounders first, ignore the shamblers. Shout if you see any Climbers. Julia, you're on task to point out the herd leader. This is a big group, if we can get them squabbling amongst themselves, all the better."

Julia took their pair of binoculars and began scanning the horde. None of them seemed to be directing it, but there was always one in some sort of charge. Get them and the horde would lose its cohesion. With a horde this size, the leader would probably be a Climber.

As she scanned them, and yelled to the others. "The group is avoiding the outer traps. They're going around the kill zone in front of the gate and headed right towards that weak spot in the fence. Whoever's in charge of this group is a smart one."

Tarquin was holding the rifle. "Just find them and tell me who to shoot."

As the Bounders reached the fence, the first crossbow bolts flew. All of them struck flesh, the crew was getting good. The Shamblers all continued churning around in their horde, slowly making their way forward.

Julia continued her search with the binoculars. "Something seems off."

Tarquin looked through his rifle sight. "Yeah, and the wailing just stopped."

The horde seemed to split in two. Julia could see zombies flying into the air and smash into clumps of others. A different wail arose among them as the horde turned and began to shamble away. The Bounders ran ahead, abandoning the rest. The Shamblers continued to fall. Soon there was only one figure left.

Julia could see it clearly in her field glasses. A single blood-splattered figure, walking slowly over the mounds of dead zombies, approaching the compound. It hesitated briefly at the edge of the floodlights, then walked slowly to stand a few dozen yards from the building.

One of the crew loosed a bolt. "Damn it, Hold, you idiots. I wanted to see what this thing was," Tarquin shouted. The figure hadn't fallen. It held the bolt in one hand, where it had caught it.

"One. One crossbow bolt, ah, ah, ah." The figure's laugh was distinctive. "Do not fire another. I am here to offer my help against the corrupted ones."

"Who are you?" Tarquin was pointing the rifle at him.

"I am your savior. A True Child of the Night. One who Hungers. Allow me to approach." The figure didn't wait. They rose up in the air and floated onto the roof.

Tarquin kept the rifle pointed at them. "You didn't answer the question."

"I am one of the Vampyr. Did you not pick that up from the black cape? I mean it's a bit stereotypical, but it really does help with the flying." The figure's cape looked like they had picked it up at a Spirit Halloween store.

"Do you have a name?"

"Call me Lord. Call me Master. Call me Draco, I don't care. Put the gun down, it wouldn't do you any good. I have come to offer you a deal. A simple one. I protect you from the corrupted ones. You feed me. There are enough of you here that none of you need die. It has been getting very hard to find uncorrupted humans and I hunger greatly."

The crew looked at one another. They were tired. They had been tired for weeks. None of them showed fear of the vampire. Julia could tell what decision they would make.

Tarquin grew bold. "You don't like the taste of zombie blood, eh? 'Cause we got plenty of that."

The vampire wrapped his cape around himself. "We cannot feast on the blood of other vampires."

[More writing at r/c_avery_m]

"But Mommy, why won't you help that man?" Julia was pointing. Her mom had told her it wasn't nice to point, but how else was anyone supposed to know who you were talking about. The man she pointed at was sitting on the sidewalk with a cardboard sign. Julia couldn't read the writing. He had a dog.

Julia's mom grabbed her hand and adjusted Julia's fur trimmed coat as she hurried her along. Their coats matched. "Some people just can't be helped, Juley Dear. If you give them money they'll just spend it on drink. If they deserve help, the church will give it to them. Or they'll get a job."

She turned back to stare at the man as her mom pulled her along. "Mommy, I remember when I wanted a job but nobody would give me one. Maybe he wants a job but nobody will give him one."

Mommy stopped to look at some handbags in a window. They looked a lot like the one she was holding, but Mommy had a lot of handbags. She never let Julia play with them at home. "You were line leader at school last week, and didn't you say that it was your job to feed the fish next week?"

"No, Mommy, I mean back before. Before I was Juley. When I was a man like him and nobody would give me a job." Julia swayed and swung, hanging on to Mommy's arm. Looking at handbags in windows was boring.

"You have such the imagination, Dear. I'm sure somebody would have given you a job if you were willing to work hard. Come along." Mommy dragged her into the store. It was filled with more handbags, each on their own table. And more employees than customers.

The employees were all dressed in little black dresses. One of them greated Mommy. Julia stuck out her tongue. "And I was never allowed to go into stores. Not in the front door."

"What are you going on about now, Juley? Be still. I want to look at the new bag." Mommy said that last bit to the rest of the room and several of the employees started to scurry about. Mommy came here a lot.

"They wouldn't let me go in the front door or eat lunch or nothing. People were mean to me when I was a man. I don't know why. People are always nice to Daddy." Mommy was looking at the bag, so Julia just spun around in the middle of the room for a bit. One of the employee's smiled at her, but watched her carefully.

Mommy smiled. At the new handbag. "Oh, I'll take it. Just put it on the account. Come on now, Juley."

They walked back out onto the street. Julia screamed. Mommy turned to look at her and saw that she was pointing again.

"Stop that, Julia. Those are policemen, they are our friends." Mommy gave her a stern look.

Julia hid behind Mommy. "But Mommy, before, when I was a man. The police are the ones that killed me."

[More writing at r/c_avery_m]