Real Animals
Novelette 7,768 words Recommended by 4 award/anthology sources
The aliens occupied and controlled the bodies of animals, destroying most of humanity. A few survivors in a ski resort pass the time preserving the bodies of friends who didn’t make it.
Content warnings 4
animal-harmdeathdeath-of-a-loved-oneviolence
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.