Review: Off With Their Heads by K.A Merikan

Off With Their Heads by K.A. Merikan
Self-Published
Short Story: 40pgs
3/3.5 Pants Off

Blurb:
It’s 1907, twenty years after the outbreak of a zombie Plague. For a young medicine student like Clint, the undead bodies provide an opportunity to study human physiology in the working. He is a good young man: tidy, well-mannered and hard working. Focused on his goal to become an excellent surgeon, Clint has a bright future ahead of him. If it weren’t for a shameful secret he’s forced to keep, his life would have been perfect.

Xavier, a peculiar foreigner he finds in the morgue late at night, claims to be an assistant to one of Clint's professors, but doesn’t know the first thing about the proper way to behead zombies. Xavier’s story has many loose ends, but something about him unlocks all the emotions Clint always kept bottled up inside. When he learns the truth about Xavier, Clint finds himself involved in a conspiracy that could destroy everything he’s worked so hard for. Frightened by the possible consequences, yet strangely fascinated by the eccentric, tattooed stranger, Clint follows him to places he would never dare explore on his own.

Review:
Clint is a medical student who works closely with zombies. They are provide a way to study the human body, and how it’s evolving. 20 years since the plagued hit and left millions of the undead walking around, Clint doesn't know what the plague was like, but he knows what life is like now, crowded and safely inside behind protective walls. When he runs into a professor assistant cutting off some heads, Clint offers his help because clearly the assistant is new to the removal of zombie heads. What's peculiar is that he says he needs ten heads, and that’s a hard job without some help.

It all becomes clear when Clint finds himself sneaking out with heads in a bag, and the beautiful thin stranger sharing his plot to make living art (well undead art). Running through back alleys, trying to stay clear of the cops, suddenly life for Clint has become a lot more interesting. If only Xavier wasn't so thin, different, and beautiful because trying to hide his body's reaction isn't easy.

The thing with short stories is that they end far too quickly for my liking. Off With Their Heads was getting into the meat, and then it just ended. So it’s very hard to rate and come up with my exact feelings. Firstly, I am very interested in the skinny Xavier, he's all artsy and rebel (also a bit silly). Clint is his complete opposite, sheltered, intellectual, and very innocent. They come together in a playful hot kinda way.

Not my first Zombie book by the authors, but this one failed to move me like the Scavengers stories. I am feeling all blah about it, so I don't know how to rate it. I didn't really like it, but I don't dislike it (at a crossroads). Hopefully there will be more of Clint and Xavier because the plan for the heads is just too big to be ignored.

SideNote- Cover is AWESMAZING!!

3.5 Pants Off