A short story of the Geriatric Apocalypse.

You’ll never look at grandma the same way after reading this new short story

You’ve heard of the zombie apocalypse – forget all that. This is a strange new take on this existing genre. Aimed at both the horror fan and the young adult horror fan this short story follows young Billy Cope a normal boy who’s grandmother is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

One day she turns violent. She believes her family has stolen her memories. Soon everyone around Billy is turning old, even the little kid next door.

Billy must survive this geriatric apocalypse and reach his girlfriend before she loses her youth to the spreading evil.

It’s quirky, sometimes frightening, sometimes humorous. You’ll never pass a home for the elderly and feel safe again.

"Alzheimer's disease (AD), is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that usually starts slowly and gets worse over time. The most common early symptom is difficulty in remembering recent events. As the disease advances, symptoms can include: problems with language, disorientation, mood swings, loss of motivation, not managing self care, and behavioral issues including violence.

“As a person's condition declines, she or he often withdraws from family and society. Gradually, bodily functions are lost, ultimately leading to death."

Billy looked up from his tablet to stare across the room at Phyllis Cope, his paternal grandmother. He couldn’t picture life without the steel-haired old woman but that’s what the wiki entry said would be the eventual result of her Alzheimer’s disease.

Dad had brought Phyllis to live with them five years ago when Billy had turned 12. In the beginning, she had been forgetful and occasionally called the boy David, his father’s name but Billy had just assumed that it was a side effect of being old.

As the years crawled on and Phyllis became more confused and withdrawn, Billy learned the name for her disease. Now he, like his father, was marking time until the old woman either died or became too much of a burden for the two men to handle. Since Billy’s mother had died when he was a toddler David and Billy Cope had been alone in the world. As a single father, David had taken to ruling the house in a regimental manner; no breach of discipline was permitted for the young Billy. The sudden arrival of David’s mother had shown that the man was capable of compassion, something Billy had never seen.

More often than not, Billy was assigned nurse detail. He would keep an eye on the old woman and fetch whatever she needed to be comfortable. It wasn’t a hard job but it did cut into his social life. Billy would spend most of his time at home reading and gaming on his tablet while occasionally checking on his grandmother who was usually staring blankly, mumbling about some past event as if it were happing in the here and now, or sleeping like she was right now.

Billy did a double take. She was sleeping, wasn’t she?

“Gran,” Billy said in a quiet voice.

“Grandma,” he said loudly when the old woman didn’t respond at all.

He realized that he had not heard a sound from Phyllis in quite some time. He wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

“Dad!”

David Cope rushed down the stairs from his home office, impelled by the raw sound of fear in his son’s voice. He skidded into the room and looked around wildly for the source of danger.

“Dad, I think Gran may have died,” Billy said in a near whisper.