Would You Like A Hand?

6 | i am

The second time the zombie rammed into the storefront, it found the door and stumbled blindly inside.

Hermione and Draco had moved to opposite sides of the store, both following the same train of thought unwittingly: there was only one zombie (for now) and they should attack it from two sides.

As soon as the zombie was in sight, Hermione let loose an Incarcerous spell, tying it up with thick, magical ropes. It fell over, screaming its cacophonous scream.

She spared only a quick glance to make sure it was down; in most cases, the human features were usually still distinguishable - just severely mutilated. Looking at them too long would make her sick. No matter how much she told herself they were already dead, there was still something highly disturbing about trying to burn or rip apart the human-like beings.

She dashed for the back door, certain Draco was following as she heard him curse the writhing zombie: "Confringo!"

Heat overtook the small store almost instantly, but wasn't able to scorch the runners as they slipped out the exit. Glass cracked and shattered. The two ran from the area, leaving their enemy to burn before more showed up, attracted to the noise.

Outside, there was only open area. A single undead being limped toward them, but it was slow and the runners didn't pay any mind to it as they escaped. It fell behind in no time.

Hermione, once again leading, ran down the backstreet. She headed for anywhere - as long as it was away from the human-looking things.

She caught glimpse of a grassy park ahead of them, and ran for it, hoping nothing was hanging out nearby. It was nature after all. It was less likely that there would be anything hanging around there.

Her surroundings blurred together in her head and she focused only on reaching the park. The earsplitting scream from the convenience store died down as they ran further away, and soon she couldn't hear it at all - it must've been burned to silence.

Confringo was meant to make explosions with flames - she wasn't surprised that it might burn through a body faster than a normal fire.

She stopped in the centre of the park and swept her eyes around the area, looking for signs of danger or more of the undead. Nothing caught her attention, so she observed the surrounding area beyond the park. More residential buildings stood ahead of them. Hermione started forward.

"Wait," Draco stopped her. She had't even realized she was slightly short of breath until she heard Draco breathing beside her. He said, "Where do you plan to go next?"

Hermione would have preferred to get closer the the city outskirts - the undead liked to wander what would have been the more populated areas of the city. In most cases, that meant downtown. But taking in their current situation, she noticed that she really needed to stop for water. They had packed some in their bags, but she wasn't going to risk standing around out here, even if they were surrounded by grass and trees.

"We'll walk a bit more, head away from there," she nodded toward the city centre, "and find a place to camp in. We don't have to go too far, although I'd rather travel as far as I can."

He nodded, "Okay."

She wondered what he was thinking. He didn't say anymore, so she started forward again, senses alert for trouble. They walked quickly, not wanting to be out for long. The former Death Eater shot an Incendio once, and Hermione saw that it was at a half-bodied zombie; the thing was missing its lower body, only able to drag itself along with its arms. It was painstakingly slow, but the mindless thing kept at it, and Draco must've either wanted to put it out of its misery, or leave the world with one less undead.

It's easy prey; he might as well get rid of it, Hermione thought.

The thing tried to scream, but maybe it didn't have the ability to anymore. It only made a soft, eerie, whistling noise. Maybe its throat had been torn out and it was missing vocal chords. Hermione didn't look long enough to check. She looked away as soon as she saw that it was crawling along and burning to death.

The face, although bloody, had been unharmed.

She would probably never get used to seeing the undead have such human faces. They weren't a silly green like in those Muggle storybooks and such; these ones were real, they had been human, they still looked like bloody humans.

And it was only recently that they started to show signs of rot - some of them had been dead for awhile now.

Maybe they would turn just as green as those fake ones.

"Are you okay?" the Slytherin boy's words broke into her contemplation. She must have been making a face or something; why else would he ask?

"I am," she said.

Well, maybe she wasn't okay, but she wasn't undead.