I will preface my comments by saying I don't like zombie stories: I think the genre is overdone recently and the world needs a break.

Now that's out of the way, let me eat my words.

I really enjoyed your story. The depth of your descriptions was beautiful. There was an immediate voice established that developed and persisted throughout the story. Your writing was lyrical and poetic, almost dreamy.

This carried me along the piece and just when I felt I needed something else, the story would shift. Like in the beginning, with the introduction and description of the museum, Cowslip, her family, then just when the reader might become weighted down by exposition, you shift to the main character and his father, a more concrete scene.

It took me a while to realize the disease was basically a zombie virus, but by then it was too late: I was immersed. And let me say that your description of the disease was grotesquely beautiful. The paragraph beginning with "Eventually, they wander" was haunting, especially the explanation of the internal organs falling out of the bodies.

I would have liked a bit more time with the infected father to get a better understanding of how the sick are affected. We see him talking to Cowslip, so how far gone is he really? Does he know what's happening to him? Is he consumed by the horror of what he is becoming, or is he confused? His remarks to Cowslip seem to indicate the latter to me.

What was ailing Cowslip? She was coughing but I did not see (or have forgotten) if there was an explanation for her illness. I wondered if it was related to her smoking. Or was this symbolic of something?

Finally, the comment at the end "Bunch of old rocks and shitty paintings. What good is it now? White people!" threw me off. I realize it was prompted by the guard's question "Where's the white guy?" but I felt like it was supposed to be meaningful somehow in the context of the whole story. Yet I was unsure of what that meaning was because until that point, race had not been brought up (not that I noticed at least). It made me wonder if there was something here to be made of in connection to the art theme: I know there have been issues in the art world of governments taking art from other countries or indigenous groups and then refusing to give them back later, and perhaps this connected to Cowslip's concerning of looting and art theft. But his statement belittles art. This was all I could think of though, and I was left confused.

In terms of proofreading/mechanical aspects, I noticed some issues with your apostrophes, but that is all.