Thanks go to Boco for his awesome suggestion
CHAPTER 2: BLOOD AND MERCY
HEART RATE: 130BPM
For the last three days my cries had gone unheard. If civilization hadn’t collapsed, I would’ve been rescued by now, I was sure. Too bad that the zombies had come and messed everything up. Three days ago I’d tumbled from that cliff-face and hit the bottom hard, shattering my pelvis. The grass here was high and it led down a steep incline and I’d been stuck here all that time. A sharp tree branch had ruined my throat and now it looked like I was just going to lay here until death.
Or at least until the dead found me.
Above, I saw a figure tumble from the edge of the cliff, falling backwards. A young girl fell from the top, going down at least twenty feet, before a tree branch hit her body hard and she rolled with the blow, falling face down. Her eyes were closed and she was biting her lip hard, probably to keep from screaming. She was beautiful. I’m not a lesbian, but I fell in love with her immediately. She hit the gravel head-first and rolled down the incline, past where I lay, scraping and scratching herself, but seeming to avoid anything serious. When she landed at the bottom, the little Asian girl’s head whipped up and she looked around, furious. She gave a little whine and I saw her ankle was twisted. Despite all that, she rose to her feet. I whimpered a little and she saw me, moving closer. She stood over me, in her torn little uniform and looked down. Her eye, the other was covered, was dark. I croaked at her and gurgled blood. She shook her head and turned away, obviously not seeing much in me. She looked around the incline, seeing the car park that laid at the bottom. I heard the moans of zombies and I could tell what she was thinking. They were coming here. I shivered when I thought of them finding me.
She hopped down some rocks, then looked back at me again. She made her way back up to where I lay, keeping her eyes off of me. When she stood over me again, something wet touched my arm. Her long hair hung in front of her eyes, but… Was she crying? She glanced up the cliff and then back at me. I wanted to tell her to run and get away, but I couldn’t form the words. Neither could she, apparently, she was completely silent. My eyes were drawn to two knives glinting on a leather strap she wore around her shoulder. She drew one of them out and crouched down over me, meeting my eyes. I tried to raise my arms but I couldn’t. I wanted to kiss her and tell her everything would be alright. She cried soundlessly and held the knife out to my throat. I lay back and closed my eyes. This world had become a mess, all societies brought to a complete halt, as vermin and decay picked away at it. It was as if time had frozen and now someone was chipping away at the ice. In the last three years, the world had become one that I would not miss if I were to die.
I smiled and slipped into dreams.
***
The girl had gone right over the incline. The zombies milled around in the rubble, wanting to go after her, picking safer ways down the cliff. One or two went straight over, but I couldn’t see what happened to them. I lurched forwards, even as our ranks were swelled. The survivors who we had just killed were rising to their feet, the mob instinctively staying away from those ones and instead eating those who were two damaged or weak to rise again. One man had had his neck broken and his body was in spasms, his dead head moaning for the power of the undead, but the mob knew he wouldn’t be able to fight. They pulled his skin off and cracked his skull and I moved past them towards the cliff.
I still had two functioning eyes and could see all the way down. The girl was stooped over the body of another dead girl, closing her eyes, then I saw her take off down the incline, gravel scuffing under her feet. She was heading for a car park and I yelled for the other zombies to follow her. She looked up at me, hearing only hungry moans and brainless desire and I bet she thought nothing of it. I was a primitive animal now, but I knew enough to know her flesh would taste the sweetest. The prey that gives the hunter the best chase is the finest-tasting. I headed down a slope, slipping and sliding through the rocks. A zombie got in my way and I shoved him down and he was trodden to death by those who followed after me. His ribcage shattered as more and more walked over him and the next lot stopped to feed on him. Survival of the fittest, humanity. You can set your watch by it.
***
The girl ran through the car park, hunkering down. She knew that the large vehicles would block the zombie’s line of sight and most of her scent, but she had another reason for coming here. It was an area where she had the advantage, since her hands were strong and her feet were quick. If the zombies caught up, she could have herself on the roofs of the cars in no time and leap from car to car without a problem. She fell to the ground by a car and ripped off the license plate, pulling some twine from her pocket and fashioning the best splint she could under the circumstances. It stung every time she took a step, but you didn’t escape zombies by worrying about pain. She had gained respect amongst the zombies and she knew it. She was tireless, desperate and fueled by an all-consuming desire to continue living, at any cost. She had taken the skills that made the zombies what they were, she had observed the way they acted and now she was taking those advantages and making them her own.
Her stomach growled and she knew she had to eat soon. She ran across the car park, picking her way through, seeing some zombies had reached the bottom of the cliff. She had to find somewhere to hide, not here. Turning to the right, she grabbed a plank of wood off the ground and ran at a row of shops, smashing in the window of the first one she came to. She dove in, tying the rope to her belt with some more twine, so she could have both hands free. A convenience store, good. All the meat had gone rotten so she went to the packaged food, chips, salsa, all that and begun to dig in. The store’s security camera was still in and she saw herself on a television set just above the entrance. She climbed up onto the counter and tore the camera down, putting it at the door, so she could see out into the street through the television. She could see the dead making their way down the street and shrugged, getting back to her task at hand. She grabbed a backpack and began stuffing food into it, while she chewed on a red apple, before zipping it up and slinging it over her back. The plank of wood and the knife weren’t much good as weapons, but they were all she had right now. She hopped over the counter, wincing as her sprained ankle touched the ground and went to the backroom, finding a door out the back way. She opened it and stepped out.
I was waiting for her. My hands closed around her ankles suddenly, pulling to her ground with ease. Her lip curled back and she made a little “uh” noise as I pulled her down and began to climb onto her. The hunger in my belly was overwhelming and I dug my claws into her right thigh, tearing at the soft flesh. My lip peeled back, baring a row of broken, battered teeth, which I sunk into her thigh and used to begin tearing the meat off. She grabbed the plank of wood, which caught on the twine on her body and brought it down on my head, before tearing it off her body.
HEART RATE: 160 BPM
My teeth dug deeper into her as she hit me and she howled in pain. Bad move, sugar. You just gave at least fifty of us your exact location. She seemed to know it, too, and brought the wood down again. Something, probably my brains, slopped down over my eyes as she began to belt me over and over again. Her body tasted like you wouldn’t believe. One time, when I’d been alive, I’d taken my son to the finest restaurant around. We had red wine and lobster, which we pulled apart with our hands. We cracked the shell and tore the meat off with our teeth. She tasted like that lobster, but much sweeter. My skull broken open and she grabbed my head, turning it sideways and cracking something around my neck. She flung me away and rose woozily, her mind going cloudy with the loss of blood. She rested on the wall and began to limp towards a row of houses down the road. I watched, upside down, as she limped in that direction and tried to drag myself after her. For some reason, though, attempting to move my leg moved my arm and vice versa. I scrabbled helplessly on the floor and realized I was dying. I wasn’t religious, but at least I’d join my son in death, if not in the afterlife. My right eye twitched spastically as the last few parts of my brain died and then I lay still.