Collection of Short Stories

Zombie

 It stumbled down the empty street. There were no sirens, no cars, no people; everything was gone. It limped past the crumbling buildings and fallen traffic lights, past dark alleys and over the stained concrete. It was hungry.

He didn't have a name; if you could call it a he. He was rotten. It's personality was long since gone, rotted away with everything else on him. His teeth were falling out and rotting. His hair was mostly nonexistent, as there wasn't much in the way of skin to hold any. Many of his bones had been broken and weren't ever going to heal.

He was without life, yet he lived. He was without humanity and had no semblance of ever being human, yet it was the creature he most represented. It was an it and a he, all in one.

It stepped on broken glass. The glass did nothing but make itself a part of him. He felt nothing but hunger. All of the nerves in the body were disconnected; like pulling a plug from an outlet. Not that there were any outlets that worked, or anything to plug into them.

It stumbled slightly and stopped. It had heard something. A subtle nick of a shoe on the concrete. It grunted and turned its blind eyes towards the sound.
As it advanced, it heard the shuffling of many feet. And a smell. Something... rotten. Not food. It continued on. For hours. Bumping into walls, into others and falling over. Still they walked.

Again he was shuffling, but this time in company. Less food in company but he didn't understand that. None of them did. Something penetrated the air. It was fresh and... sweet. Not fresh like fresh baked bread and not sweet like candy, but fresh and sweet all the same. He stumbled a little faster. Food.

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food. On and on and on continued the word in it's brain. Food. Then a scream. Suddenly he was running. He may not have been able to see with his eyes, but he had his mind's eye. A sort of red pulsing mess. A pulse. Pulse means food. Red means food. A path was carved in his mind and he knew exactly how to get to said food. An awkward broken ankle here, swerve here, then a dive.

Suddenly it was in his hands and in his mouth. Screams filled his mind but his thoughts were much louder. Food, food, food. Something sticky dribbled down his forearms. Sweet. Fresh. Food. It was sweet alright. It was almost like liquid metal, but somehow better. The temperature was just right, not boiling or ice cold, but just right. It was juicy and full of the metallic taste. He craved it. He didn't care much for the meaty part, it was just kind of there.

He devoured everything but the bone, and when that was gone he reached for more. He was warm and filled of the sweet metallic blood. It coursed through his system some, before spewing out in the patchwork of skin and bones. It was a he and it was an it. But in this moment, it was more human than it had ever been before.

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I am so happy with the way that this turned out. It is my second attempt at a third person POV, and I'm so excited to share the rest of my stuff with you! I really don't have an update schedule for this because so far everything I'm planning on publishing is written in my creative writing class. (I'm also mainly just trying to get this out there) I'm not sure what this will turn into, because I really don't plan things out. Andddddd even if I doooo, I tend to not do it anyways xD
Thank you so much for reading

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