Despite the title, this fascinating story from science fiction writer Robert Heinlein has nothing to do with zombies of the “walking dead” kind. Rather, it is a cleverly constructed brainteaser that explores some potential problems and paradoxes of time-travel. We can’t say more without spoiling the story, but can tell you that first time readers usually come away with their heads spinning from trying to work out “who is who” and “who did what to whom”. If you are similarly confused, Wikipedia has an excellent summary of the relationships and sequence of events here. Themes: time-travel, intersexuality, isolation.
Original Text / PDF / Audio (4,667 words)
I’m a fan of Heinlein but had never read this. For those interested, there is a 2014 movie starring Ethan Hawke called Predestination that depicts this story.
The movie floats around the streaming services like Hulu and Prime occasionally. Here is the IMDB summary: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2397535/
The movie, in my opinion, does not capture the mind-bending nature of the short story but it is fun to watch after reading the story.