What happens to someone who desperately wants to die once death no longer exists? That’s the dilemma faced by this story’s protagonist once the dead start coming back to life.
This story, published in the October 2009 issue of Space and Time magazine, was actually meant to appear elsewhere. It was written for the most part to, at, and returning from the 2005 Glasgow Worldcon. Why work so hard during what was supposed to be a fun event? Because the editor of an then-upcoming zombie anthology needed the tale quickly so he could hand the completed manuscript over to the publisher.
Unfortunately, the publication date of that book—which was intended to be released in 2006—kept getting pushed further and further back. After several years of waiting, I decided to pull the story from the book and market it elsewhere.
Good thing, too, because that anthology has yet to be published (I don’t even if know if it’s being marketed any longer), and if I hadn’t taken it back, the story would still be unread.
“The Human Race” was reprinted in my zombie collection What Will Come After.