============================================================ PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY Radio Drama by Julio Lonnie Lopez 2026 ============================================================ SOUND: Static, then silence. Distant moaning. Shuffling footsteps. NARRATOR The end of the world doesn't come with a bang. It comes with a shuffle. A moan. The sound of something that used to be your neighbor trying to remember how doorknobs work. Gary's been living with these sounds for... well, he's lost count of the months. Could be five. Could be eight. When every day is about not dying, you stop marking them on calendars. SOUND: A stomach GROWLS. Loud. NARRATOR And that... that's the sound that wakes him tonight. Not the moaning outside. Not the thumping against the walls. His own stomach, staging a protest louder than it has any right to be when there are things outside that get excited about noise. SOUND: Rustling of sheets. Gary's breathing. NARRATOR Gary's eyes open. He's staring at his ceiling - or where his ceiling would be if he could see it in the dark. He's wondering if they heard that. The stomach growl. He's wondering if that's how it ends. Not fighting them off. Not running out of water. But betrayed by his own digestive system. SOUND: Distant shuffling. A low moan that fades. NARRATOR They didn't hear. Or they did and they're too busy shambling toward something else. Either way, Gary's still alive. For now. Congratulations, Gary. SOUND: Gary sits up slowly. His hand brushes against something - the baseball bat. GARY (whispered, barely audible) Okay... okay... NARRATOR That's Gary's voice. You won't hear it much. He doesn't talk anymore. Not really. What's the point? The dead don't listen, and the living are mostly dead. But sometimes, late at night, hungry and alone, he talks to himself. Just to remember what his voice sounds like. SOUND: Footsteps - bare feet on wood floor, slow and careful. NARRATOR He's moving now. Toward the kitchen. Because that stomach of his isn't taking no for an answer. It wants food. Never mind that the cupboards have been picked cleaner than bones in a graveyard. Never mind that his last meal was a can of creamed corn he found hidden behind the water heater three days ago. The stomach wants what it wants. SOUND: Footsteps pause. A board creaks. NARRATOR Gary freezes. Every sound is a risk. Every footstep a gamble. He's gotten good at this dance - the slow-motion ballet of survival. Step. Listen. Breathe. Repeat. SOUND: Distant moaning continues. Something bumps against wood outside. NARRATOR There they are. His neighbors. Well, what used to be his neighbors. He doesn't know their names anymore. Doesn't matter. They're just shapes in the darkness now. Shapes that used to wear better shoes than he does. SOUND: Gary's footsteps continue. A door creaks open slightly. NARRATOR The kitchen. Gary's favorite room, back when rooms had purposes other than "place to hide" or "place to escape from." Now it's just another danger zone with a sink. SOUND: More shuffling outside, closer. A low moan. GARY (barely a breath) Come on... keep moving... NARRATOR He's talking to them now. The dead ones outside. As if they'll listen. As if they care. But hope springs eternal, even when eternal is looking pretty short these days. SOUND: The shuffling fades slightly. Moving away. NARRATOR And they do. They keep moving. Because Gary's lucky. Or cursed. Depending on how you look at it. Lucky he's alive. Cursed he has to keep being alive in this. SOUND: A cupboard opens slowly. The hinges creak. NARRATOR First cupboard. Gary already knows what's in here. A can of green beans he's been avoiding because he hates green beans. But hunger has a way of making you reconsider your opinions on vegetables. SOUND: Cupboard closes. Another opens. NARRATOR Second cupboard. Empty. Gary knows this too. He's checked it seventeen times. Eighteen now. Just in case food magically appeared. It didn't. SOUND: Third cupboard opens. Rustling inside. NARRATOR Third cupboard. The rice. That bag of rice Gary can't cook because cooking requires water and noise and time - three things that get you killed these days. He reaches past it, more out of habit than hope... SOUND: Gary's hand moving items. A pause. His breath catches. NARRATOR And then... Gary's hand stops. Because there's something back there. Something he missed. Something wonderful. SOUND: A jar slides forward. Glass on wood. GARY (whispered, almost reverent) No way... NARRATOR Goober. Peanut butter and jelly, swirled together in one jar like some kind of sandwich miracle. The seal's intact. The expiration date is... well, Gary doesn't care about the expiration date. The apocalypse has a way of making you flexible about such things. SOUND: Gary sets the jar on the counter carefully. NARRATOR And for just a moment - one brief, shining moment - Gary smiles. Actually smiles. When was the last time that happened? He can't remember. But here he is, standing in his kitchen in a ratty night robe, grinning at a jar of Goober like it's the holy grail. Which, let's be honest, in his current situation... it might as well be. SOUND: A drawer opens slowly. A slight SQUEAK. NARRATOR And there goes the drawer. Squeaking like it's trying to get him killed. Gary bought this house because it had "character." Turns out character means "every hinge announces your presence to the undead." SOUND: Gary freezes. The drawer stops moving. Silence except for distant moaning. NARRATOR He's waiting. Listening. This is Gary's life now - measured in heartbeats between sounds. Did they hear? Are they coming? Will this be the drawer that ends everything? SOUND: The shuffling outside continues, unchanged. NARRATOR They didn't hear. Or they did and don't care. Hard to tell with the undead. They're not exactly communicative. SOUND: Gary carefully pulls out a knife. The drawer closes slowly, almost silently. GARY (exhaled breath of relief) NARRATOR Gary grabs a butter knife. Not the sharpest tool in the drawer, but then again, neither is Gary at this point. Sleep deprivation will do that to you. So will spending months alone with only the moaning dead for company. SOUND: Bread box opening. The rustle of a plastic bag. NARRATOR The bread box. Gary eyes the plastic bag inside like it's a bomb. Because in a way, it is. Plastic crinkles. Crinkles make noise. Noise makes dead things curious. And curious dead things make Gary very, very nervous. SOUND: The knife carefully cuts through plastic - a soft whisper of sound. NARRATOR But Gary's learned a thing or two about survival. You don't grab. You don't rush. You calculate. Every movement has a sound cost, and you pay in silence or you pay in blood. SOUND: Bread sliding out of the bag. Set gently on counter. NARRATOR Two slices. That's all he needs. Two slices of slightly stale white bread and that jar of Goober, and Gary can pretend - just for a moment - that the world is normal again. SOUND: Outside - a MOAN, closer. Footsteps shuffling near the back door. NARRATOR And there it is. Company. Right on schedule. They patrol, you know. The dead ones. Shambling their little circuits around the neighborhood like they're still checking the mail and watering the lawn. Except now the only thing they're checking for is you. SOUND: Gary's breathing stops. Complete silence. NARRATOR Gary's not breathing. He's not moving. He's a statue in a bathrobe, one hand hovering over two slices of bread like some demented cooking show freeze-frame. This is the game. Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't exist. SOUND: THUMP. Something bumps the back door. NARRATOR There's the door. Good old back door. The deadbolt's holding. For now. Gary installed three locks on that door. Seemed excessive at the time. Seems reasonable now. SOUND: Another THUMP. GARY (in his head, the narrator voices it) Please keep moving. Please keep moving. Please keep— NARRATOR And they do. They shamble on. The footsteps fade back toward the woods, following their nightly routine, their circadian rhythms of the damned. SOUND: Gary exhales. Very slowly. NARRATOR Gary breathes again. The moaning fades. And for a moment - just a moment - Gary feels lucky. Or maybe just less doomed than usual. SOUND: The lid comes off with a final soft pop. NARRATOR Got it. The lid's off. And inside... perfection. Swirled peanut butter and jelly, untouched, unspoiled. Gary could cry. He won't. But he could. SOUND: Knife dipping into jar. The soft sound of spreading. NARRATOR Gary spreads the Goober on the first slice with the precision of a surgeon. Every stroke matters. Too fast and the knife scrapes. Too slow and his hand shakes. It's an art form Gary never knew he'd master - the silent sandwich assembly. SOUND: Spreading continues. Soft, careful, methodical. NARRATOR He's in the zone now. That place where nothing exists except him and this sandwich. The zombies outside? Forget about them. The rice bag shifting on the shelf behind him? He doesn't notice. The fact that his entire world has collapsed into this one simple act of making food? That's just Tuesday. SOUND: The second slice being spread. NARRATOR Second slice. Gary's almost there. Almost to that moment where he gets to bite into something that isn't canned, isn't stale, isn't another meal of "well, it won't kill me faster than the zombies will." SOUND: Bread placed on bread. A gentle press. NARRATOR And there it is. A sandwich. An actual, honest-to-god peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The kind you'd make on a Sunday afternoon before the world ended. The kind you'd eat without thinking about it. The kind that meant nothing when it meant everything. SOUND: Gary picks up the sandwich. A pause. NARRATOR Gary holds it. Just holds it. Looking at this thing he's created. This small, stupid, beautiful thing. SOUND: A bite. Chewing - slow, savoring. NARRATOR He takes a bite. And for one second - one perfect, impossible second - Gary isn't afraid. Isn't alone. Isn't living in the end times. He's just a guy eating a sandwich in his kitchen. SOUND: Another bite. More chewing. NARRATOR The second bite is even better. The third? Heaven. Gary chews slowly, his eyes closed. Behind him, through the gaps in the boarded window, shapes move in the moonlight. Zombies, shambling through his backyard. But Gary doesn't see them. Doesn't care. Right now, there's only this sandwich and the silence. SOUND: Behind the narration, very subtle - rice beginning to shift. GARY (whispered, barely audible) Maybe... maybe this isn't forever. NARRATOR And there it is. Hope. Dangerous, stupid, beautiful hope. Gary standing in his kitchen, thinking maybe - just maybe - things could get better. That he could find more food. That he could survive another week, another month. That somewhere out there, someone's fixing this mess. SOUND: Rice shifting more noticeably now. NARRATOR He finishes the sandwich. Licks his fingers. His stomach's quiet now. Satisfied. For the first time in days, Gary feels... okay. Not good. Not happy. But okay. And okay is a miracle in this world. SOUND: Gary picks up the jar lid. NARRATOR He reaches for the Goober jar. Still half full. Enough for another sandwich tomorrow. Maybe two if he's careful. Gary screws the lid back on, already planning. Already thinking ahead. That's what hope does - it makes you think about tomorrow. SOUND: The lid twists back on - a louder TWIST this time. NARRATOR And that's when everything goes wrong. Well, not the lid. The lid's fine. It's what Gary doesn't see. What he didn't notice. That bag of rice he moved to get the Goober? The one that was leaning against the jar? The one that's been slowly, incrementally, impossibly shifting this entire time? SOUND: Rice bag tipping - a soft sliding sound. NARRATOR It's falling. SOUND: SLOW MOTION - the bag tumbling through air. NARRATOR Gary's turning. Some animal instinct telling him something's wrong. But he's too slow. He's always too slow. That's the problem with hope - it makes you slow. SOUND: The bag HITS the floor - RICE EXPLODES across the linoleum, a cascading RUSH of grain scattering everywhere. NARRATOR There it goes. Every grain hitting the floor like a tiny bell announcing Gary's location to everything with ears. And the dead? They might not see well. They might not think well. But they hear just fine. SOUND: Immediate MOANING from outside - multiple zombies, all reacting at once. GARY No... no no no— NARRATOR Gary's stomach just got fed. Now so will they. SOUND: THUMP THUMP THUMP - fists pounding the back door. Multiple zombies converging. NARRATOR The back door. Of course the back door. That's where they all are - the ones from the woods. And now they know exactly where dinner is. SOUND: More moaning - from the sides of the house now. The scraping of hands on wood. NARRATOR They're converging. Coming from all sides. Because rice on a kitchen floor sounds like a dinner bell when you're dead and hungry. Gary's got maybe ten seconds before that back door gives up being a door and becomes kindling. SOUND: Gary grabs the Goober jar. NARRATOR But here's the thing about Gary - he might be slow with hope, but he's fast with survival. He grabs that Goober jar like it's the last thing on Earth that matters. Because right now? It might be. SOUND: Running footsteps. The BACK DOOR SPLINTERING. GARY (panicked breathing) NARRATOR He runs. Through the kitchen, through the living room, toward the front door. Behind him, wood cracks. The dead are coming in. His home - his sanctuary for all these months - is done. Over. Gone. SOUND: Front door deadbolt unlocking. Chains rattling. NARRATOR Front door. Gary's hands shake as he unlocks it. One deadbolt. Two. The chain. Come on, come on— SOUND: Behind him - the BACK DOOR CRASHES open. MOANING floods into the house. NARRATOR Too late. They're in. SOUND: Front door swings open. Night sounds - crickets, distant moaning. NARRATOR Gary throws open the door and bursts into the night. Bare feet on concrete. Night robe flapping. Goober jar clutched to his chest like a newborn baby. He doesn't look back. You never look back. SOUND: Running footsteps on pavement. Gary's ragged breathing. NARRATOR The front yard's darker. Fewer of them here. A couple shambling shapes in the distance, but they haven't seen him yet. The street ahead is clear. Well, clear-ish. Clear enough. SOUND: Behind him - CRASH. Wood breaking. More moaning. NARRATOR Behind him, they're pouring out of his house. His home. The place he's kept safe for months. All those locks, all those boards, all that careful silence... gone. Undone by a bag of rice. SOUND: Gary's footsteps fade into the distance. NARRATOR Gary runs. Barefoot on the cold pavement, clutching a jar of Goober, wearing nothing but a ratty bathrobe. He looks ridiculous. He looks desperate. He looks alive. And in this world, that's all that matters. SOUND: Footsteps getting quieter. Distant moaning. Then silence. NARRATOR Where's he going? Gary doesn't know. Somewhere. Anywhere. Away. He'll find another house, another hiding spot, another cupboard to search through. And maybe - just maybe - he'll find another jar of Goober. Because hope springs eternal, even when eternal is looking pretty short these days. SOUND: Silence. Then distant shuffling. NARRATOR That's Gary's story. A man, a sandwich, and the end of the world. Not exactly heroic. Not exactly tragic. Just... survival. One meal at a time. One day at a time. One jar of Goober at a time. SOUND: Footsteps fade completely. Silence. NARRATOR Sleep well, Gary. If you can find somewhere to sleep. And if you can't? Well... there's always tomorrow. Probably. SOUND: Static. Fade out. ============================================================ From False Universe https://afalseuniverse.com ============================================================