November 14, 2024
The woman awoke with a start, her face pressed against cold concrete. Everything was dark and silent, except for the faint metallic clank echoing from somewhere far away. A sweet taste lingered in her mouth, though she couldn’t place what it was.
Her vision blurred, and her head swam in a thick fog. She blinked, trying to focus, but nothing felt right. She couldn’t feel her breathing or her heartbeat—only an eerie stillness in her chest.
Where was she?
She pushed herself upright, her hands against the cold ground. The concrete didn’t feel cold, or warm. It didn’t feel like anything at all. Slowly, she stood, her body moving stiffly, like she had forgotten how.
The air around her was thick with the sharp smell of motor oil. A dim shaft of moonlight slipped through a dirt-streaked window, barely lighting the room. It looked like a garage—concrete walls, scattered tools, the vague outline of a workbench.
Something was wrong. Her shoulder felt heavy and strange, not with pain but a dull, hollow sensation. She raised her hand to touch it. Her fingers came away slick and wet. Blood.
Panic should have set in, but it didn’t. Instead, she stared at her blood-smeared fingers, unable to feel the rush of fear that should have come with it. Her clothes were splattered in red—not just her blood. This was too much.
She stumbled toward the faint light, her legs weak and sluggish. In the window’s reflection, she caught a glimpse of her shoulder. The flesh was torn, jagged bite marks. Someone—or something—had bitten her.
From the corner of the garage, a body. She froze, every muscle tensing, though she couldn’t feel her heart race like it should have. Her eyes flicked toward the sound. A shape slumped against the far wall, unmoving.
She stepped closer, her body reacting on instinct.
In the dim light, she saw it—a woman’s body, slouched and still, with a screwdriver lodged in her eye socket. The handle jutted out grotesquely, catching the moonlight. The woman stared at the figure, her mind racing to piece it together.
She had done this.
The memory returned in pieces—chaotic and jumbled. The woman had lunged at her, gnashing teeth, and she had fought back in a panic. Somehow, she had grabbed the screwdriver, driving it into the woman’s eye.
But even as the memory formed, she felt nothing. No guilt. No horror. Just the strange, heavy absence of emotion.
The distant sound of gunfire cracked through the air, pulling her out of the fog. She crouched low, peering through the dirty window. Outside, under the glow of a streetlamp, she saw a figure staggering down the road, moving in a strange, jerking motion. She watched, confused, as the figure limped forward—then crack. A gunshot echoed. The figure collapsed.
Two men stepped out of the shadows, dressed in military gear, their rifles still smoking. They didn’t even glance at the body. She stared in disbelief.
Why had they shot him?
Her eyes drifted back to the dead woman in the garage, blood trickling from her mouth, teeth bared in a twisted snarl. The woman looked down at her own torn shoulder again, at the bite marks, and the truth hit her, cold and undeniable.
She couldn’t remember who she was. She couldn’t feel her breath or her heartbeat. And now… she understood.
She was a zombie.
The word clawed at her mind, but her body felt nothing. She couldn’t afford to think about it. Not now. The soldiers were nearby, and if they found her, they would kill her, just like they had killed the others.
Moving quickly, she crept to the garage door, slipping through the gap into the cool night air. It should have felt cold against her skin, but it didn’t. She scanned the street, her senses heightened but distant, like she was watching herself from somewhere far away. The soldiers were further down the block, their attention elsewhere. She darted between shadows, moving faster than she expected.
The night was eerily quiet, broken only by the occasional crack of gunfire. She was nearing the end of the block when a soft sound stopped her. A whimper. She turned toward it.
There, behind a bush, a young girl—maybe ten or eleven years old—was crouched, her dirty face streaked with tears. She trembled, wide-eyed with fear.
The woman’s heart—if it had been beating—would have ached for the child. She stepped forward, hands outstretched, trying to offer comfort.
“It’s okay,” she whispered, though the words felt strange on her lips, foreign. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
The girl shrank back, her small hands raised in defense, her eyes filled with terror. The woman stopped, confused.
“I won’t hurt you,” she said again, more softly. But the girl didn’t seem to understand. Her expression only grew more terrified. The words the woman spoke weren’t… right. They were sounds, not language.
The girl opened her mouth, ready to scream.
“No,” the woman lunged forward, clamping her hand over the child’s mouth. “Quiet!” she hissed, desperate to keep her silent. If the soldiers heard, they would come. She could see their shadows moving in the distance.
But as she held the girl, something shifted inside her. A hunger. A need. Something primal, overwhelming, took hold. Her mouth watered, the sweet taste she had woken with returning.
Her grip tightened.
The girl’s muffled screams sent a thrill through her body she couldn’t understand. Before she could stop herself, the woman’s teeth sank into the girl’s neck, tearing through flesh. Blood filled her mouth, warm and sweet, and the hunger roared, taking over.
The girl struggled, her body jerking in pain, but the woman couldn’t stop. She didn’t want to stop. Her mind went blank with need, with hunger. She pulled the girl closer, her teeth tearing through muscle and bone, blood pouring across her hands.
Somewhere in the distance, the soldiers’ voices grew louder, their footsteps closing in, but the woman didn’t care. The world had shrunk to the girl’s body, to the blood, to the hunger that consumed her.
Crack.
A gunshot rang out, sharp and sudden. She felt a push at her back, a small jolt between her shoulders. She paused, blinking down at herself.
A hole, gaping and large, had opened in her chest where her heart should have been. She could see the inside her own chest, blood pooling around her. But there was no pain. No sensation at all.
The woman’s mind stuttered. She knew she should feel something—fear, terror, anything—but the hunger drowned it all out. She turned back to the girl’s body, pulling it closer, her mouth finding another piece of flesh.
Crack.
Another gunshot. This time, there was no push, no sensation.
Just blackness. Instant and complete.
The last thing she tasted was blood.
And then, nothing.
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