The South probably won't rise again. We're too busy trying to keep up with each other. Down here, family ties are strong but often as tangled as the kudzu that grows wild along the highways. These stories are told with a helping of humor, a pinch of forgiveness and a dash of dismay.This selection features Cousin, a short story from the upcoming collection My Kin, soon available as an ebook.No one knows who started using the word 'f-zombie', though the term seemed to fit. There's not one officially recognized source for the 'f' in f-zombie, but each explanation for it is pretty much true. One thing that they are is fastidious. What that means is that they tidy up after themselves, which means they look like everyone else. No blood drippings from their chins, skin hanging loose off their face, no white eyeballs or the stench of rotted flesh. If your best friend was a well fed f-zombie and was sitting in that chair on the other side of the room, yeah that chair with your stuffed teddy bear, you wouldn't have any idea at all. They tied their shoes, buttoned their shirts and combed their hair. Fooled us real good. That's another 'f', 'fooled'. Because they looked so much like everyone else, we liked to say they'd pull a 'fast one' on you. That's where they fool you and it's also how so many people got bit.There was also the name 'festies', cause they'd show up at parties. 'Feisties' because they'd get real agitated if you found out they were an f-zombie and didn't treat them exactly like you had before they were infected. There was the name 'Falsies', cause they're just false. Last one I can remember was 'feasties', cause they were coming to eat you.