Cold, but Still Human

Chapter 5 - Eden

[September 3, 2017]

After walking for around ten minutes, the group hasn’t spotted any walking corpses or infected bodies; just empty streets. This arouses Serena’s suspicion once again.

She glares at Eden with a suspicious look, and comments, “I don’t understand why we’re doing this ‘survival thing’. I mean...no decaying corpses have shown up or anything!”

Suddenly, a skinny, pale, and definitely decaying teenage boy comes into view, Katerina looks over at Amanda and sees her face turn pale from fear. The group is shocked at the dead body’s gory and disgusting appearance, and pauses their trek to stare at the dead body in horror.

“What...is…that…?” Amanda cautiously asks, looking at Eden.

Katerina immediately recognizes that the boy isn't dead, and once again pulls out the crappy notebook, and proceeds to look for a similar description to the decaying boy.

“I was right!” she exclaims, pointing at the diagram that somewhat resembles the boy. “Stage two the diagram that somewhat resembles the boy.’

Andy crouches down and cocks his head to the side. “What the hell? Are you sure this matches up with anything? All I see is a dead guy.” Katerina scratches her head, worried at how close Andy is to the boy.

Laughing, Andy jokingly taunts the body, “Hey dead guy! Wanna have an arm wrestle?” he then proceeds to poke the decaying boy, trying to get a response.

“Andy! This isn’t a joke! Stop it!” Rachel yells.

“What? Nothing happened. See? It’s just a dead boy. I told you!” He replies confidently.

“Aaaauuuggghhh” the body moans, its voice raspy. The zombie-like creature’s jaw hangs open, and its eyes light up.

“AAAAAAAHHHH!!!” the teens scream, backing away from the body.

Andy is petrified. “OHMYGOD!” he screams.

The body begins twitching, and it glares up at the group with soulless, glossy eyes.

Andy’s face turns pale. “It does move!” he shrieks.

Suddenly, the corpse crawls forward in quick, rigid movements towards Eden. It lunges for her ankle, mouth open, ready to bite onto her flesh. In a single movement, Eden shifts her leg, dodging the bite, and using that momentum to spin around, kicking the creature back to its original place.

“Back up!” Eden instructs, taking paces behind her.

“Katerina! How are we supposed to kill it? We literally have nothing on us.” Rachel reminds the girl.

Serena takes out the hammer she used before. “I have a hammer.”

Shakingly, the decaying boy gets on his feet, his grotesque head resting on his right shoulder and hands clutching his stomach, as if indicating hunger. “Flesh…fleshhh,” he desperately groans, slowly making his way towards the group.

“Guys, he isn’t dead.”  Amanda informs, stepping back cautiously. “We can’t just kill an innocent person.”

Katerina nods in agreement, carefully watching as Eden circles the boy. Just when he starts to lash out at the group, Eden lifts her left forearm up in front of herself, protecting her body, and quickly rams the boy back into a tree.

“Where’d you learn these sick moves from?” Andy questions.

“Gimme a sec.” Eden replies. She places a foot behind her, supporting her from falling backwards. She uses her right hand to grab the boy’s right, and spins him around. Eden puts both of his arms behind his back, maintaining full control over them. She pulls him back for a second, then shoves him against the tree, his chest plastered against the bark, weakening the boy. His head pokes out from the side, trying to turn his head around to sink his teeth into someone else. “I’m sorry I have to do this.” she whispers, then turning her head back to Andy.

“I used to practice martial arts.” Eden says, using one hand to hold the boy’s arms in place, risking her other arm to hold his head still.

Andy scratches his head in a confused manner, then coughs loudly to attract attention. “Sorry. I get that this is crazy and all, but there’s only one of those walking corpses, and he runs hella slow. I mean, it’s not like we’re being ganged upon,” he mentions.

Following his statement, a moment of realization hits the group. They can easily outrun this single corpse. Why are they wasting their time surrounding this one creature?

“You know what? You’re right. Why the hell are we amped up about this one guy?” Katerina agrees.

“Exactly!” Andy yells in a loud voice, very enthusiastically.

Eden whips her head around and looks at Andy with a scared expression. “Andy! Don’t yell so loud! These creatures are attracted to sound, you know!” she yells in a low, raspy voice.

As if on cue, various moans are heard nearby, and a large group of corpses come into view. The creatures have the same disgusting complexion, hungry stare and staggering walk as the decaying boy. Not to mention, the same speech: “Flesh...fleshhh...fleshhhhh…”

Andy’s hands grab his hair and trembles in stress and shock. He stammers, “I th-think I-I jinxed s-something.”

Serena glares at him, eyes flaring. “No shit!”

“What do we do!?” Amanda asks in a panicking tone.

“RUN!!!” Eden yells, as she releases the corpse-boy and dashes off.

With Eden in the lead, the shocked group of teens sprint into the direction of the portable, their best chance for survival.