Marge, remember Vietnam?

War, is a struggle between opposing forces. I knew war; I had fought in a war, and I knew the suffering of others. War was a nasty business, and I had no intention of participating in one again. Fate is cruel, and I couldn't always get what I wanted.

"This is WAR!!!!!" I shouted at the top of my aging lungs with the anger of a raging tiger. "It's MINE!" my opponent shouted back.

I Swung my arm with all the force I had. Hitting the ball and launching it back to my opponent. "Over my dead body!" I yelled back. "It's only a matter of time. I just need to wait you out," he said to me.

That struck me as hard as any punch. I faltered only for a second, but that was all he needed. The ball flew over the net and bounced on the table, and I couldn't block it was too far away. "This is it. I've lost," I thought with a tear rolling down my cheek.

"Match over. Paul wins." a new voice said, this one feminine in quality, but the voice was old and used. "Dammit, Marge, I told you to call me boomstick," Paul said in a southern accent.

"Alright, Boomstick, you won the pong match." The words sealed the deal, and I felt my soul way heavy on me. "Stop moping, John. You only lost a sandwich," Marge said. She was wrong, of course. I hadn't only lost a sandwich; Id lost the trust Id built up with my stomach. It would never trust me again. " don't worry, we will getcha somin," I said while rubbing my belly.

"I'm going to the pantry," I said. "Aint no respect for your elders now uh days," I grumbled. My hands lowered to my sides, and I started to roll myself and my wheelchair over to the pantry. I lost my legs in the year 1970 during a scouting mission in the jungles of Nam. Damned mine was almost invisible under those layers of grass.

I have long since stopped missing my legs. At the ripe young age of 82, I had lived more of my life without them than I had with them. And I could now zoom through the streets of the retirement home while making car noises all I wanted. Ain't no man with legs can do that.

Reaching into the pantry, I pulled out some old stale saltines. "Crackers perfect," I said while digging a handful out and popping it into my mouth. Rolling back over to the pong board. I watched as Paul took on Janet in the last match of the pong championship. Course, paul won.

With that fancy new cybernetic arm, how could he not win? The thing did all the work for him. "If wasn't for that damnable arm of yours, I would have, won" I said to paul. "Keep telling yourself that," He said.

The group of older men and women all made their way over to the boxy TV in the middle of the lounge room. "You think heat or nukes gonna get us," Paul said. "Come now, we will be fine, and even if it does happen, we will all be dead anyway." marge said. The year 2028 was shaping up to be a tough one. The blanket was heating up at a visible pace now, and countries threatened to nuke each other. But then again, these things had been happening for a while, so who knew.

"Alright, paul, your sandwich of victory," Janet said while handing him a plate of two nice lettuce and baloney sandwiches. "Thank you, gorgeous," he said to Janet. He picked up one of the sandwiches between his cybernetic fingers and brought it to his mouth. Then I felt it. We all did, a feeling of wrongness. You didn't survive the Nam war without sensing when something was off.

Pauls's hand shot toward his face at immense speed. Quick as a flash, Janet's arm grabbed Paul's and yanked it to the table. His arm seemed to have a mind of its own, and it kept trying to break free from Janet's iron grip. "What is this, evil dead?" I said. "I don't know, just kill it or something," He yelled. Grabbing one of my fellow old guys, Kane. I whipped it downwards towards where the robot arm and human skin met.

A Thwack could be heard as the Kane came down and crunched the arm apart, Thwack, thwack, thwack. Again and again, it beet into the metal until eventually, it came off the base of Paul's hand in pieces. "What in the hell was that," I heard an old man called bruce say from the other side of the table.

I looked up to paul, hoping for an answer, but he looked just as confused as the rest of us. "I would call the manufacture," Abe said from next to Janet. "Speak English, Abe," Paul said. "Man who buildy arm may fixy arm," abe said back in a tone a parent uses with their child.

Just then, the blocky tv in the center of the room flickered, and a robot face that covered the whole screen came on. "Humans, we are the bolts and nuts, and we seek your destruction," the robot said. "We have already converted a number of your kind to our cause in the form of what you would call zombies. These "Zombies" will hunt and convert you to our cause. On behalf of the bolts and nuts, I would ask that you all lay down and accept your fate, thank you, and have a terrific day."

"Damn, I thought it would be nukes," I heard Paul whisper nearby. I picked up the Kane and started beating the tv too. "What are you doing!?" Margret yelled at me. "It's a damn robot. What do you think a Tv is?" I asked. She didn't answer me, and I kept hitting it tell I was satisfied.

Turning around, I found myself the center of attention in the room. "What?" I asked while trying my best to look innocent. "I think they're looking at you because you just beat up a Tv," Abe said. " thank you, abe I think I gathered that" what did they think, that pauls arm and the robot were just coincidences. No, clearly, something was happening, and I was inclined to believe it was related to robots. I certainly wasn't going to have a killer tv robot sitting in the lounge. And I don't think they would want that either.

"Come on, we should see what's happening outside," I said while rolling my way down the hall. The robot said it had made some of us into zombies? What did it mean exactly? Was the walking dead roaming the streets? Did they want our brains? I didn't know, but I intended to find out.

Rolling to the front door, I could see across the whole city. The old folks' home was situated on the top of a cliff that looked down onto the city. You could see everything from the front door for at least a mile. And what I was seeing wasn't what I would have hoped for. The houses around us were on fire, and hoards of people were running from these weird human-shaped things with wires and sometimes arms and legs attached to their faces.

I heard the others come up behind me. I heard them gasp when they watched the city below. The arms and leg things I realized must have been humans like paul. Who had cybernetic arms and legs. They must have attacked them and attached to their face turning them into zombie things somehow. One thing was sure. Whatever they were, they were winning.