Alien VS Zombears

The Strange Case of The Zombie Bear Hunts

Excerpt from the audio documents of Ilnarojagixyphornacrixa, of Chryselephantine.

Spoiler Alert: In the Earth year 2,027 A.D, the planet is overtaken by infected homosapians dubbed "zombies". By 2,093 A.D, uninfected homosapians manage to take their world back, eventually creating a preventative vaccine. Zombies lessen, though they never quite go away, especially when wild animals go unvaccinated.

I had just landed in a place called Old Jersey, in the country of America, their year of 2,100 A.D. By this time, the earth's atmosphere had thinned, the globe had warmed, their winters were no longer cold, their summers were terribly hot. (I say this relatively- compared to Chryselephantine, it was still a freezing planet). I stepped carefully out of my ship, sporting a heavy, deep-green jacket over a faded brown tank top and tan capris. My wavy hair was pulled into a thick ponytail and my antenna were tucked away with it. I had thrown some of my gadgets and other things into a forest-patterned backpack and slipped my compact laser-blaster into my jacket pocket for easy access. The grass was crisp and bright, perhaps a little dry in the early December air. I smiled up at the sky, appreciating the piney scent of the forest, letting the filtered light soak into my skin.

I dragged a few larger fallen branches from the brush and stacked them up around my ship, doing the best I could to hide the conspicuous transport. No matter the year, humans tend to disapprove of things they don't quite understand, so it's always best to not let slip about your stellar heritage. With that done, I looked up the barely visible dirt trail and headed off. As I made my way through the dense greenery, I was constantly aware of the scuttling animals, presumably little paws crunching through tree branches and dry leaves. I kept on high alert until I made it out into the bright daylight at the edge of a large road. On the other end of the pavement I could read a large, hand painted sign, which advertised the "annual zombie hunt" and included a time, place and date to meet. I didn't need to check my hyper-watch to know that I had landed on the same exact advertised day. I walked across to the sign and looked at the map of the city that had been stapled to it, upon which someone had generously circled a location, which was surely the meeting place.

It wasn't very far and I was there in under thirty earth minutes. It was a decently sized house and I could see through the windows that the meeting had started. There were a few people sitting in a front room, talking about something, sipping from plastic cups. I rapped my fist lightly on the door and in only a moment someone opened the door. He was tall, broad shouldered and tan, with dark blonde hair and a full beard. He was dressed not dissimilarly to myself, in natural tones and thick fabrics.

"Oh, I didn't think anyone else was coming. Who're you?"

His voice was gruff, about what you'd expect from one who looked as worn and tough as he did.

"I'm Ilna," I chirped, adjusting my backpack.

He looked at me incredulously.

"And you're here for the bear hunt?"

"Of course. What else would I be here for?"

He thought for a moment, then turned away, heading back to the group.

"Well, you're late. We were just about to go out."

It was a short drive from the house to the hunting spot. The man, whose name I discerned was Zeke (short for Ezekiel- which isn't short for anything. Human names are weird), was driving, with a shorter, stouter woman whom he'd introduced as his wife, Kale (short for nothing???) in the passenger's seat. In the middle row were three more males, and I sat in the back with a boy named X (they're getting worse) and a girl who went by Tucker.