I have a new favorite zombie short story. I love zombie fiction so I read a fair bit of it and thus my current favorite changes regularly. However, it’s going to take something pretty special to replace “The Third Dead Body” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman in my heart. I <3 it. Truly.

I encountered it in the book I’m currently reading, The Living Dead which is a superb zombie anthology but the credits tell me it was originally published in The Ultimate Zombie.

“The Third Dead Body” is emotionally honest, brutal and touching at the same time. The author puts so much into so few words…I will definitely be looking up more work by her. No question.

Another awesome story from this anthology is “This Year’s Class Picture” by Dan Simmons (originally published in Still Dead). It was also great.

Since I’m only six stories in and two of them have completely blown me away (the others are good too), I think I’ll be writing a rave review of this anthology in the not-too-distant future. But that one story, “The Third Dead Body” was so fantastic I just had to gush a little bit now.