BETTER SAFE THAN ZOMBIE

OZTS 19| Dandelion

"How come we didn't see it?"

We stared at the finally dead Miss Grant, studying her corpse under the moonlight. After she had risen from her grave and became a zombie (literally), I had shot her in the head and put her to her final rest before the rest of her body could follow her head and arm.

Then we called Ethan and Hazel and woke them up, and Christian dug out the rest of her body.

"The bite was on her shoulder, which must have caused the blood you saw on the floor of her room," said Hazel, pulling down the woman's shirt to expose her bitten flesh. "And since we were in a hurry to bury her, we didn't exactly conduct an autopsy."

"But she should have died due to the strangulation," I said, crouching down beside Hazel. "Unlike the myth, the zombies in our world aren't the reanimated dead that you can only kill by destroying the brain. They could die as long as the cause was fatal." The rope marks were still on her neck, evidence of her suicide. "And as far as I know, hanging yourself equals death."

"Maybe she wasn't fully dead when we took her off the rope," suggested Christian. "After all, her body's still fresh."

"And we buried her in the late afternoon," said Ethan, who was inspecting her grave. "The grave we dug wasn't really that deep. But wait, waking up from the grave? Could this be--" he gave a fake gasp, putting a hand on his chest as he staggered backwards--"a zombie?"

We all ignored him.

"Nothing we can do now," I sighed. "We have to bury her back or the kids are going to have a nasty surprise tomorrow."

"Eggs and bacon with a side dish of corpse," muttered Hazel, slapping her knees and standing up. "Okay boys, do your job right this time. I'm going back to bed."

I started to follow her, but the ground suddenly tilted and I stopped. I took another step again and the dizziness came back.

"Kathryn? Are you okay?"

I gave Christian what I hoped was a convincing 'I'm fine, don't worry' smile. "Just feeling a bit nauseous. A few minutes of sleep will probably cure it."

I walked off before he could say anthing more, my hands clenching at my sides.

First fever, then nausea. I wasn't fine, not by any definition of the word. I had a long transition phase, considering some turn from human to zombie in just a minute, but it was starting to end.

If I wanted to die, I had to do it fast.

-

"Hey Kath, you awake? It's morning."

I opened my eyes slowly, and Hazel's grinning face came into focus.

"Good morning, sleepy head. Its time to smell the sunshine, listen to the birds chirp, and feed some hungry children."

I turned to the side and covered my head with my pillow. "What's so good in the morning?"

"My face, you darling ray of sunshine. Have you seen the good-looking specimen you have for a bestfriend?"

"So you've said. I don't see it though. And I don't speak early bird, so you might as well give up."

"Well too bad I didn't come with subtitles. God made the world dubbed, so you'll have my perfect pitch voice to pay your full attention to. Its practically what he did on the seventh day."

I cracked one eye open. "You're the most annoying alarm clock I've ever had."

"Please. I'm too beautiful to be annoying." She grabbed my other pillow and whacked me with it. "Now wake up! I've reached my quota for idiots I have to deal with today, and I'm in beast mode."