Living Dead

Chapter 1

I examine myself in one of the hospital's bathroom mirrors; I'm too pale, my thin blonde hair is dsgusting, I'm way too skinny, and there's blood all over my t-shirt.

I suppose my appearance is expected though, considering I'm a walking corpse.

I don't remember much about my life before the 'Zompocalypse.' I can't even remember how it started, it's all so fuzzy. For all I know, an expired cheeseburger jumpstarted the apocalypse, turning millions into the mindless, living dead.

The bathroom door creaks open and I turn to see the Lovebirds shuffling towards me. Hand in hand, rigor mortis binding them together for the rest of their unlives.

I grunt a hello, the woman grunts back. She's missing her right arm. The man who's still relatively intact, save for what's left of his internal organs swinging from the cavernous hole in his chest, speaks.

"Hu... hung... gry," he rasps, and now he mentions it, I am too.

Now, the Lovebirds and I are different. There has to be others like us out there somewhere, zombies that are just barely able to think and feel and talk. That desperately cling to that small chunk of humanity.

That's what brings us together, gives us this twisted parody of friendship. Well, that and the fact that it's next to impossible for them to take down an armed Breather when they've only got one free hand.

I nod my head, a quick jerky motion, and we shuffle out of the bathroom. The hall was eerily quiet, the dead rarely left the ground floor of the hospital. It's the reason I choose to spend most of my time up here, the only other undead that ventured to the fourth floor were the Lovebirds.

As the three of us make our way slowly through each floor, we pick up a few others for a hunting party. Traveling in packs of five or ten reduces the chances of dying the Final Death and increases the chances of eating.

As seven of us pass through the second floor, I draw a deep breath in through my nose and catch the familiar scent of Breathers. I slow my pace, shambling just behind the group, and see the others have noticed the scent too. They're close, probably below us. I don't know how many are there, but it hardly matters, The Hunger is getting stronger.

The living are at the reception desk, backs facing the stair well we're descending. Their guard is down and we burst through the door. I count six of them and they notice us but it's too late for the three in front of the desk. They die brutally, in a mess of bullets and body parts.

The two standing on the desk are men, they aim their guns and kill three of us. They're distracted and I grab the older man's leg, yanking him to the floor. He gasps when he hits the ground, winded, his gun slides across the bloodied floor. I snarl viciously as I grasp his messy graying hair and smash his face into the edge of the desk as hard as I can, repeatedly.

Now, I need you to understand, I don't enjoy hurting people, but I have to. My fear of the Final Death out-weighs the discomfort of killing. The Hunger is also a powerful factor.

I hear the sickening, tell-tale, crack of the man's skull breaking and I crouch over his head, slipping my fingers into the break. I wrench his skull apart and dig into the mess of half-scrambled brain, scooping what I can into my mouth. He won't rise again now; destroy the brain, destroy the corpse.

The Lovebirds are beside me, digging through the man's intestines. Normally, I would shoo away any unwanted dinner guests, but my friends have a hard time getting their own food.

A small unfamiliar sniffling sound distracts me from my meal. I stand and wipe my mouth. The sound is close, behind the counter maybe? I step around feeding Dead and locate the small door and try to push through, it's locked though and I topple over it, landing on the other side with a thud.