Fiction, Horror, Comedy
3 min
The Broke Girl's Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse
Kelly Ta
If you'd told me two weeks ago I'd be running from zombies in a golf cart, I would have laughed, flipped my $8.50/hour pay stub at you, and said, "Babe, I can't even afford a bus pass."
But here we are.
It started with the world's worst part-time job. Ami and I were working a shift at—wait for it—a graveyard. We were supposed to "monitor the grounds for vandalism," which basically meant sitting in a tin shack with one flashlight, a thermos of instant coffee, and an ancient walkie-talkie that only said "SKKKRRT" whenever we tried to talk.
The pay was trash. The hours were worse. But we were broke college grads with useless humanities degrees and rent due.
So yeah. Graveyard duty.
Ami was the quiet one—logical, pragmatic, the kind of girl who read the terms and conditions before clicking "I agree." Me? I was the kind of girl who saw a "No Trespassing" sign and wondered if it was a dare.
Around 2:17 a.m., Ami was halfway through explaining why TikTok astrology was mathematically impossible when I heard it.
A low, gravelly groan.
Not the "old man with arthritis" kind. The "I just woke up from eternal rest" kind.
Ami froze mid-sentence. "...Kiari?"
"Yeah?"
"Did you hear that?"
"Yep."
"Could it be... a raccoon?"
"Raccoons don't say braaaaains, Ams."
We turned. And there it was—a silhouette stumbling between headstones, moving wrong. Too stiff. Too jerky. Like a drunk Roomba with bones.
"Maybe it's a prank," Ami whispered. "Like those Halloween TikToks—"
The thing's jaw fell off.
"Nope," I said, standing up. "That's not TikTok. That's dead-dead."
We ran.
Of course, we ran.
Of course, we ran.
The problem? Ami's beat-up Honda was parked half a mile away—outside the cemetery gates.
So we did what any resourceful broke girls would do.
We stole the groundskeeper's golf cart.
We stole the groundskeeper's golf cart.
It was white. Rusty. One tire is slightly deflated. The logo said "WhisperGlide Cemetery Model 2003." WhisperGlide, my butt—thing sounded like a dying blender.
Ami hopped in the driver's seat like her life depended on it—which, to be fair, it did. I jumped in beside her, yelling, "GO GO GO GO GO—"
She slammed her foot on the pedal. The cart coughed, wheezed, and started moving like it was dragging its soul behind it.
"WHY IS THIS THING SO SLOW?" I screamed.
" ‘CAUSE IT ELETRIC KIARI!" Ami yelled back.
The zombie horde started pouring out from behind the mausoleum, moaning like a bad karaoke night.
"GO FASTER AMI!" I screamed.
"I'M TRYING, KIARI!" Ami shouted back. "THIS IS A GOLF CART, NOT A TESLA!"
Miraculously, there was a duct-taped-together gun sitting right beside a bag of Cheetos.
It looked sketchy. I grabbed it anyway and spun around like some action hero from Dollar Tree.
"Ams! We got a gun!" I said, holding it up like I'd just pulled Excalibur out of a clearance bin.
"That's not a gun," she said, swerving to avoid a headstone. "That's arts and crafts with trauma."
"Close enough!"
I aimed at the nearest zombie, pulled the trigger—
PING PONG PING PONG PING PONG!
Tiny plastic balls bounced off their skulls like sad raindrops. One hit a zombie in the eye. It blinked. Once. Then kept walking.
"Kiari!" Ami yelled. "You're just making them ANGRY!"
"I'M DOING MY BEST WITH WHAT GOD GAVE ME!"
We were flooring it across the cemetery—gravestones whipping by, zombies closing in, the cart battery screaming like it wanted to die before we did.
Ami's knuckles were white on the wheel. "If we make it out alive," she muttered, "I'm getting a desk job."
"Office work doesn't survive the apocalypse," I said. "You'll just die filing tax forms."
"Thanks for the optimism!"
Something grabbed the back of the cart—a zombie in a torn mailman uniform. Ami screamed. I turned, fired another round—PING PONG PING PONG—right into its nose. It sneezed, lost balance, and faceplanted into a tombstone.
"Ha!" I yelled. "Take that, knockoff corpse!"
Ami started laughing—half-hysterical, half-panicked. "This is not how I thought we'd die!"
"Same! At least I pictured a beach!"
Just as we reached the cemetery gate, the golf cart sputtered.
"Ami?"
"Yeah?"
"Why are we slowing down?"
She looked at the battery gauge. It was flashing red.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me—"
The cart rolled to a stop. Dead silent.
Then came the chorus—groans, shuffling feet, snapping bones—all getting closer.
Ami looked at me. "Plan B?"
I raised the ping pong gun. "Plan B is stupid."
"I'm listening."
"We run."
"Approved."
We ran until dawn—through the trees, over fences, across a field that smelled like fertilizer and regret. When we finally stopped, panting and muddy, the sun was rising over the hills.
Ami dropped onto the grass. "So. Zombies are real."
"Yup."
"Our only weapon was a ping pong gun."
"Also yup."
She groaned. "Kiari, we're doomed."
"Maybe," I said, sitting beside her. "But at least we're doomed together."
Ami looked at me, dead serious. "Next time, we steal a golf cart battery from a Tesla."
I grinned. "Now that's broke-girl innovation."
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