Thank you so much for such a well thought out and compelling critique. I very much appreciate you taking the time to both read my story and leave this for me, and I'm so very happy you enjoyed it. Honestly, I'm not one for zombie stories either. Zombies are my one bizarre and irrational fear -- like clowns for some people! (Seriously, I had a panic attack while watching Shaun of the Dead.) So I tried to approach it in a new way and I'm glad that it worked for someone not a fan of the genre.

Thank you for the advice on elaborating with the father. I'm very much considering developing the story a bit more and submitting it for professional publication, so I'll definitely flesh this out a bit more. As for Cowslip's illness, as with the museum theme, I wanted to look at the end of the world from a different perspective -- what happens to the art? And what happens to people who get sick from diseases that hospitals could treat if all the doctors weren't dead or fled? I ran out of time with this story to really put my thumb on something, but I imagine she had either tuberculosis or pneumonia, diseases that are big killers in the developing world already.

I'm sorry that you felt that the last statement was belittling the art -- that's the last thing I wanted to do! There were two reasons for this in my mind -- one, the narrator just wanted to get through the checkpoint, and assumed that the guard would likewise think someone heading into an infected city to loot a museum was a crazy person. My narrator hopes that a joke will allow them to connect, and for the guard not to look too closely at him because of that.

Second, and if you'll forgive me trying to be a bit high-browed about this because it is a zombie story, you were absolutely right about it reflecting on the art theme and the developing world. I specifically didn't name the narrator -- or give the events a concrete setting -- because I wanted the reader to feel like it could happen anywhere, with just enough of a hint that this was not in a first world country. I did want the reader to be a little bit shocked at the statement because, like my beta reader said, "I assumed the protagonists were white until I read that!" And I wanted the reader to maybe consider the implications that the first foreign people to enter the city after the disaster were there for the treasures rather than the struggling survivors, and that this doesn't come as a particular surprise to the inhabitants. I hope that clears things up -- without being offensive. It's more to make the reader think than condemn any particular race or person. This story much is very much based on the recent events we saw with Ebola, mixed together with the recent destruction of museums and heritage sights in the Middle East. To me, it's almost impossible to tell a story like that without involving race and poverty, and I tried to do it very subtly -- maybe too subtly. I hope that clears things up for you, and I'll definitely have another look to see if maybe I can rework it a little!

Again, thank you so much for the critique. I appreciate your time and your attention and your thoughts more than I can say!