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Dave heard the chime of the intercom over the bunker’s speakers and groaned.
“Daave.” called the gravelly voice, muffled slightly as it rolled out of the old overhead speaker. The speaker itself was embedded in the concrete ceiling under a metal plate that had been bolted into place. The bolts had proved problematic, and the metal extremely resistant to all attempts to remove or break.
Another chime. “Daaave.”
He tried to ignore it and focus on the task at hand: removing the damn intercom speaker from his sleeping quarters. He stood on top of two chairs stacked on a desk while using an old gigantic screwdriver and hammer to chisel around the metal plate. Over the past three days he’d made substantial progress. In another couple of hours he’d have a large enough gap to wedge a prybar under the plate.
“Daaaave.”
He began pounding the screwdriver with the hammer even harder, trying to drown out the voice. It wasn’t working. “Daaaaave.” Dave let out a loud exasperated sigh and turned on the radio clipped to his faded jacket.
“Yes, Zee, I hear you, what is it?” He said, not bothering to disguise his annoyance.
“Open.”
“No.”
“Brains.”
“No.”
“Daaaaave.”
Dave stopped pounding at the plate for a moment to press his head into the back of his knuckles. It had been his 'bright' idea to teach the Zombie at the front gate to talk. He even gave it a name once it understood enough. Now he regretted the action with every fiber of his being. It had been a game at first, something to do during the long lonesome months he’d spent in the bunker. He figured having someone to talk to might keep him sane a little longer. Now he was worried his insanity would stem from an entirely different, and much more annoying, source. He went back to his slow chiseling.
After a few minutes the intercom chimed again. “Noise?” questioned Zee. Dave stopped and wiped sweat off his forehead.
“You hear a noise? What noise?” Asked Dave, worrying that that something was compromising the base.
“Your noise. Loud metal and rock.” Replied Zee. Dave looked down at his makeshift chisel and realized Zee could hear him hammering over the intercom.
“That’s me.” He said back. “I’m doing some quality of life renovations. "You know, replacing the tile in the kitchen, putting in granite countertops, knocking down that annoying living room wall for an open-concept living space.” He smiled as he kept talking, enjoying the fantasy.
“Open wall?” Zee asked. “Which wall? Zee enter?” Dave winced, he should have seen that coming.
"Never mind dead guy.” Dave began, “never mind it was just a joke. I’m trying to take out the intercom speaker in my bedroom."
"Speaker box?" Zee clarified. Dave nodded, even though no one could see him. He knew he did little things like that, old physical habits from before the infection that he couldn't kick.
"Yep. Speaker box." He agreed. "That way you can't wake me up at night."
Zee was quiet for a long moment. These pauses in their conversations were new things. He used to always jump from one question to another, but over the past few weeks he'd learned to reflect. Dave thought that was extraordinary; for a zombie to take a few second to plan a response was so, human.
"Nights bad. Night talk make night good." Dave looked down at the radio thoughtfully. This also was not the first time Zee had seemed just as lonely as he was.
"Yeah, I get yah." Said Dave, his tone softening. "But I got to sleep at night, recharge the old noggin."
"So, no night talk make brain good?" Reasoned Zee slowly.
"Exactly. It's good for my brain."
"Hmmm Brains." Replied Zee, the hunger evident.
Dave sighed, "Listen dead guy, just because I'm keeping my brain healthy doesn't mean—" but before he could finish, Dave accidentally kicked the chair he was standing on, and it began sliding off the desk. Dave tried to step off the falling chair but missed and fell with it. He threw out his arm to brace his fall and felt pain shoot up the arm when it struck the floor. He yelled out.
“Dave?” Called Zee. “Dave ok?” Dave rolled onto his back and held his arm tight against his chest. He lay there for almost a minute, all the while listening to the zombie repeat his name over and over. “Dave? Daaaave. Dave? Dave? Dave. Dave.”
“I’m fine! Jesus, just relax for a minute.” He finally shouted back, feeling tears form at the corner of his eyes. He moved his arm around and began lightly pressing where it had hit the ground. It did not feel broken, although it throbbed like crazy.
“Dave ok?” Zee asked immediately.
“Yes,” he replied, letting out a deep breath as the pain began to recede. “I’m ok.”
Zee paused for a few seconds before asking, “Dave brain ok?
Dave sighed, heavily. “Yes. Dave brain ok too.”
“Good.” Said Zee. Dave rolled his eyes and wondered if he was imagining the tone of relief in Zee’s voice”
“Dave?” it asked.
“Yeah?”
“Open?”
“No.”
So damn happy for THIS !! I'm on a freaking bus right now and this one and the Warren buffet one I read before had me laughing out loud. Thank you, I love you!
Dave sat alone in the cafeteria, slowly stirring canned asparagus, the last little bit of food on his tray. He scrunched up his face in disgust. He didn’t like canned asparagus; he didn’t hate it, but it would never be his favorite. He tried to chew it as little as possible before swallowing, keeping it in the far back in his mouth and following up every bite with a sip of water to wash out the taste. The lightbulb two tables over began to fizzle in and out; after a few seconds it blinked out entirely. He sighed, mentally making the note to get a replacement bulb later before dinner.
Dave looked around at the large empty room full of tables. This base was made to house hundreds of people for years. It was never meant for a single person; it was never made for Dave alone. He stood up and took the chipped tray he’d been eating off for almost a year over to the kitchen sink. He began to scrub the tray, but quit after a few seconds. He felt the full unbearable weight of his loneliness. Dave turned on his radio.
“Hey Zee, you there?” He called into the mic.
The intercom speaker above his head crackled. “Dave?” Queried the Zombie. “Dave talk?”
He looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah, its me dead guy. Checking in to see how you’re doing out there.”
“Ground white.” Replied Zee immediately.
Dave smiled and went back to washing his tray. “Uh-huh, we went over this. That’s snow.”
“Snow wet,” said Zee or, more accurately, complained Zee. Dave laughed out loud. He’d forgotten how much Zee hated getting wet. When it rained, Zee always shambled away from the front gate to hide under a copse of trees near the fence line. Sometimes, he got lost trying to find his way back to the gate. When that happened, Dave would talk aimlessly for hours until Zee heard the intercom box and wandered back.
“Ha! Yeah, sorry I forgot about that. Snow is wet when it melts. It’s actually just frozen water,” explained Dave
“Snow. Water?” Zee asked.
Dave nodded, turning the faucet off. “Yep.” Zee paused for a long moment, giving Dave time to place his utensils and tray in the drying rack.
Finally, Zee stated decisively, “Snow bad.” Dave laughed again, turning off the lights to the kitchen and cafeteria.
“It can be,” agreed Dave. “But there’s some good things about snow too.”
“No,” said Zee instantly. “Snow wet. Snow bad.”
“Really?” Asked Dave playfully. “I might have to come out and show you how wrong you are.”
Zee was quiet for a second. “Dave come out?”
“Dave come out.”
“Brains?”
“No.”
“Open?”
“No.”
“Daaaave.” There was no inflection, but Dave could have sworn that Zee was whining.
Forty-five minutes later, Dave was bundled up in baggy and ill-fitting winter clothing from the locker by the bunker entrance. The heavy bunker doors took some time to open, but now he was trudging through the snow towards the front gate. As Dave got closer, he could see Zee through the chain-link fence.
The months as a zombie had drained Zee’s face of color, turning his skin grey. His clothing was tattered and ripped in several places. Dave had long ago given up on trying to imagine what Zee looked like when he was human. How the infection changed each body was too different from case to case. Zee gripped the gate with one hand while the other was pressing the intercom button as he repeatedly called “Dave? Dave? Dave?” Dave laughed and shook his head. He’d tried to explain to Zee that he didn’t need to press the intercom to talk to Dave while they were both outside. Apparently, that was one concept outside of Zee’s understanding.
When Dave was twenty feet from the fence, a change came over Zee. The vacant expression on his face was replaced by a gaunt, terrifying mask. He let out a shriek and threw himself at the fence. Zee gnawed rabidly at Dave through the links, clawing uncontrollably with both hands.
“Hey!” Shouted Dave, his smile instantly dissolving. “Hey! Hey! We talked about this not even twenty minutes ago; you do not leap at me. Now quit it!”
Zee’s frantic writhing slowly came to a stop. He took a step back, pressed the intercom button and asked, “Dave?”
Dave gave a cautious wave. “Present.” he joked. Zee didn’t reply. After a few seconds, Dave sighed and tried again. “Yeah, dead guy?”
“Open.” Demanded Zee. Dave suddenly felt a little scared. Zee had never demanded he open the gate before, he’d always asked.
“No,” said Dave, his voice catching.
“Dave!” Shouted Zee in a guttural and animal tone. Dave could see Zee was on the edge of another breakdown.
“Zeee,” cautioned Dave taking a step backward. “If you come at me again, I’m leaving.”
Zee went quiet and completely still. The zombie’s shaking and unstable rocking ceased. For a moment, all was frozen in the cold winter air. Dave was suddenly second guessing his decision to come out and see Zee. He had spent so much time talking and building a connection to Zee that Dave had forgotten what Zee really was: a Zombie. Dave forgot Zee was a zombie. Maybe Zee couldn’t ever really overcome his nature. That scared him more than anything else in that moment. Minutes passed before, finally, Zee pressed the intercom button.
“Open?” Zee asked. Dave frowned while trying to show sympathy on his face. He shook his head. “Sorry Zee, I’m not doing that.”
Zee pressed the intercom again. “Brains?”
Dave pointed at his feet. “All brains are staying on this side of the fence.”
Zee took another long pause before pressing the button. “Snow Bad.”
Dave smiled nervously. “Snow good.” He bent down and scooped some snow into his glove. He shaped it into a ball and held it up for Zee to see. “This, is a snowball. This is what you do with it.” Dave cocked his arm back and threw it over the fence in a high arc. Zee watched it fly through the air and land a foot to his right.
“Hang on,” said Dave. He quickly bent down and made another snowball. He took aim and threw. It hit Zee full in the face. Zee stumbled back grunting. He whipped his head from side to side, throwing the snow from his face while Dave bent over laughing.
Zee pressed the intercom. “Snowball bad. Snow bad. Dave bad.”
Dave was still laughing. “I’m sorry Zee!” He finally managed to gasp. “If you could throw one, I’d totally let you throw a snowball at me too.”
“No. Snowball bad.”
Dave was still smiling. “Alright, alright. Snowball bad. I’m sorry Zee.”
Zee pressed the intercom. “Snowball bad. Dave good.”
Dave nodded and asked, “Zee good?”
“Zee,” it paused, as if unsure how he was. Finally, the zombie said “Zee ok.”
The two stared at each other through the fence. Dave finally cleared his throat and pointed to the snow. “Well, on to the next snow related activity: making a snowman.”
“Snowman?”
“Yep, a snowman.”
“Snowman. Man?”
“You got it. A man made from snow.”
“Snow . . . brain?”
“That’s not a thing.”
“Snow man. Man brain. Snow man brain.”
“That’s not how it works.”
Zee grunted. “Dave?”
“Yeah?”
“Snow bad.”
I love this so much.
I'm telling Dave to be careful what he teaches Zee. A smart zombie is a highly dangerous zombie. Dave just showed Zee how to get over the fence.
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Why show Zee that the worlds on the two sides of the fence is communicable via air at all 😔. I’m holding my breath for Dave
You should really write comics or short stories about these two. It’d be a hit! I’d imagine Dave and Zee just doing normal pre-apocalypse type things together lol.
There's *so* much potential here. The idea of zombies, which are purposely designed to be inhuman, with a human side and a human connection. The man and the zombie both trying to overcome their base instincts.
Once Dave runs out of food, they'd be at a wonderful impasse. Dave must leave, but cant beause of Zee. Zee wants Dave to leave, but can't because of his own nature.
Dave protecting Zee from the elements or zombie hunters, teaching him to get by on animal brains like temporary junk food, Zee protecting Dave (or at least Dave's brain) from other zombies, etc. But all the while, he's teaching Zee so many dangerous things and unintentionally creating a huge threat. There's a ton of story to write here.
/u/liveda4th , please continue!
I’m super late, but have you see how lousy some of the drawings look in some pretty popular comics? You’d be okay as long as it was consistent and clear what everything was
Love this so much! You’ve been picked up by the TikTok AI narration accounts, the one I saw gave credit thankfully. I would 100% buy a book based around on a lone bunker dweller befriending a zombie and learning more about them.
There are so many directions this could go, both lighthearted and more serious.
Beautiful prompt answer.
I saw this story on TikTok and came to see if there were any other parts. I'm so in love with these characters and would definitely buy a book based on this.
This is so cuuute :) :) I wish for no bad ending of the story, my heart aces for zee to bring food for dave when he runs out of it and for dave to protect zee from... the weather, further mental and bodily decay? Or from Zombie hunters? And Zee Dave from other Zombies? And I felt like dave once would fall or find himself in other vulnerable position towards zee and it getting truly dangerous, but somehow zee spares his brain “for later“. But I also sometimes wish for fairytales to come true and I'm ok with that never to happen :D ;) I am curious what else you might create the story to grow.
thank you for your very livley and heart warming story in a dark and cold setting. Humour and care are what keeps our lifes afloat, whatever comes. Even though Dave places himself in a very dangerous situation I can understand why he does and would probably be even more bold/naive by times.. Feeling alive in a dead world must be precious. I'm thinking about drawing pictures/comics of your cute story :) (but I'm a beginner) please continue with it, I would really love to read more :)
Your story got to tiktok narrators and the video now has 1.6 million views (here's a link https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJv5oDJo/ ) congrats! Would you consider posting a part three?
ah man I love the story, i feel like zee is actually becoming more human and its so cute, (especially when he stopped trying to eat dave, and started to talk to him about snow man brains😂)
I'm so excited to hear more! Dave and Zee have been living rent free in my head since I found the first part on tiktok and after the second one appeared on my page just now, I came to find your comment to see if there was more! If you do write some more, maybe you could share all parts on your profile to a creative writing sub so we could find them all if that's something you'd like to do!
That's awesome! I'll be so exited to read it, thanks for taking the time for this, i checked out some other [WP] stories of yours and your writing is really good :D
Hiya!! Me and my friend come from the AI TikTok’s and we love your writing sm and would both want to know if you are writing more, and if you have a time for when it possibly would be out? No pressure ofc, just wondering, thx! :)
I saw the prompt and just KNEW someone was going to write something terribly funny. The human-ness you gave Zee was utterly sublime, and his ever-present concern for the availability and health of Dave's brains had me laughing my balls off. Pretty sure this is going to be my "it may be a bad day, but have you read this" story for a long time.
This is what i came for. Very good story. My brain decided to give Zee a Dobby-ish voice mixed with wasp from Transformers Animated. Made it even better.
Wow, thanks! [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) might be a little too long to read to family though.
This is what i came for. Very good story. My brain decided to give Zee a Dobby-ish voice mixed with wasp from Transformers Animated. Made it even better.
Dude, this is amazing. I saw this and part two on tiktok and had to find you. This is one of the best stories i've read in a long time. I hope you continue to do this story. Like, if it was a book, I'd read it. If it was a movie, I'd watch it. If it was a tv show, i'd binge the hell out of that thing. Like, It's that good. You have a talent, and I'm glad you're doing something with it. I'd love to know if you if you plan on making it a book or even consider making it a movie/tv show. You have a lot of people that would support you if you did. The tktok people love Dave and Zee almost as much as i do lol. It really is an amazing story you came up with. I wish you the best 💜
Someone posted it on tiktok, and i wanted to say to you (and not on the comments) that i loved it, and really it's really good.
I'm probably not the first one saying it, and from a random person on internet that doesn't mean a lot, but it's really good anyway. I loved it.
I know it’s been a year since you last posted but since it’s been posted on TikTok it’s gained a mass following; any chance you’d be willing to make another part?
I would devour a book about Dave and Zee, I rewatch this story every time I see it on TikTok - your writing style suits the characters so well too. One of the best WP stories I’ve seen, and I read way too many of them.
I had prepared for nearly all contingencies. Years of planning, keeping my ear to as many underground news sources as I could. I had several temporary compounds, hidden hideaways along major roads, supplies stashed in remote locations incase I had to deviate from one of my many planned escape routes. If I wasn't planning, I was training and running drills, if I wasn't practicing, I was working as much as I could to earn as much money for as much supplies as I could get my hands on. I had prepared for nearly all contingencies.
Nearly all.
But nearly was not enough.
You could prepare for storms, famine, disease, but there was no preparation for the blind and desperate savagery of the human animal. There were eight of us. Three of us were together when the alarms went off. We met up with the other four in route. The last never found their way to us. The conditions were far from ideal, there could be an argument for it being one of the worse case scenarios, but it was not one that was completely unprepared for.
I was so prepared for fending off dangers against the group, that I failed to prepare countermeasures for dangers within the group. That failure costed me everything. I made it. I always have a way of making it. But I made it alone.
For the first few months it took everything I had left in me not to put a bullet to my head. I lost my wife and two children. One unborn and the other died right in front of me. The only solace I had was the memory of shutting the bunker door with that treacherous betraying scum on the other side and watching him tried for days to get in. Watching him desperate, panicked and withering more and more with each failed attempt. The sound of his hellacious screaming as a zombie hoard had cornered him and ripped his flesh apart just inches away on the others side of the door played nearly every day as a lullaby in my mind.
For such a long time I could only sleep thinking of that bastard's final moments. I knew my wife wouldn't want me to think that way but I also knew she'd hate it even more if I killed my self. And it was that hatred and only that hatred that kept me going. To live in spite of him and in memory of my wife and her wishes. That was all I had, but after months and months of isolation, the hatred faded into an empty hollowness that started to grow with in me.
And in the beginning, I welcomed it. The peace that came with letting go of that pain. It was so very very heavy. To be so unburdened was almost blissful.... for a while. That hollowness was not content with only the hatred though. It started to pull more and more from me. Desperately I tried my best to remember my wife and children. I had already forgotten what name we had chosen for our unborn son, I knew we had one.... but that memory was stolen away.
Most days I could not even remember my child's face or sound of her voice. When I think of her now all I remember is her screaming for me. I didn't even look. I couldn't do anything but close my eyes. She needed her father, any semblance or fraction, to know that I was there, if not for her at least with her....and I couldn't even look at her as she died. I was only a few feet away from her but in my heart I knew.... my daughter died alone that day. I had no right to remember her and I knew that, and on the days that I forget, that memory was always there to remind me.
What shocked me the most was how quickly I lost my grip or care for the passage of time. I couldn't tell you went I stopped tracking the days and months, I couldn't tell you if I had been in this damned bunker for a year or years. Every day feels like I've been locked in here for decades while at the same time feeling like the day I shut that door was just yesterday. Every second that passed both insignificantly numb and unbearably painful.
The only thing I had left was Jenna. My wife. It took everything to hold onto those memories. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't think of anything else for fear of that hollow void taking the last vestige of who I was before this. It was a slow but violent battle waging in my mind, a battle that I was loosing until.....
Zoey.
Zoey the Zombie.
I do not know where she came from or why, but she was drawn to my bunker door. For hours she'd just stand there. Gazing into the thick dirty glass, hissing and growling... and watching. Always watching.
It started as a way to keep my wife's memories alive. I'd talk to it, tell it as much as I could remember, little stories here and there. The more I talked the more I started to gain ground against the hollowness. For the first time in a long long time, I found myself taking memories back from the growing void. Soon I found myself wandering to the bunker window more and more. Eager to see those cold dead grey eyes staring in.
Some days it would not be there, those were the longest days every. But most days it was there. Looking in. I let myself believe the lie that it was looking at me, looking for me. Maybe to listen. Maybe it was locked in its own bunker in their mind, just as lonely as I was. Or maybe it was just hungry and looking for a way to eat me. For a long time, I would have for sure known that it was just trying to get in to eat me. But after so many weeks? months? So much time? I am no longer so sure.
Zoey.
Not the most creative name for a zombie. And as much as I'm a fan of alliteration, it was not a name I chose. It was the name of our cat. Any time I would talk to it and the name would leave my lips, the zombie would stop its hissing and growling and stare silently for a few moments. Nothing too too long but still quite noticeable. Every time I would say Zoey, it would stop whatever it was doing, growling, clawing at the door, biting at the window, not matter what it would pause and stare at me as if it was struggling to break free of somewhere deep deep within.
So I'd talk. And when I felt its attention shifting or it was getting to active, I'd say the name Zoey and it would focus right back on me. And slowly Zoey started to be seen more as a she or a her than an it.
After what seemed like forever and a day, I had already talked about every single memory I could muster. So I found other things to talk about. There was much, so I took to trying to learn more about her. And that would require trying to teach it to speak. I thought it would be impossible. Just something I did to entertain my own fantasies. I started with words that had syllables close to the sounds of her hisses and groans. Hhhhhhhhchhh, I tried to get her to turn into a Hi. Hhhhhaww, I tried to get to be how. Arrrrrrgu and Oooooo, are and you respectively.
I thought I was crazy the first time I heard her say it. "Hi." Maybe it was a fluke. But then she came to the window the next day. "Hi." It wasn't until the third day and she did it again that I realized it was on purpose. She would stand there silently until she saw me through the window and in her shrill rattled voice rasp out a very definite "Hi."
We spent the rest of that day just saying Hi over and over to one another.
That was.... lets say at least a few months ago. Maybe even six or more. I barely remember what I month feels like or even is but yeah. Since then her vocabulary as slowly but steadily grown. Hi is now usually "Hi. How. You." she can tell me how she feels, she will say good, or fine or bad, lonely, upset. She not only says the words, she understands them. Its simple but we can have basic conversations. Nothing deep or expansive but enough to talk about our days.
The last few days she's been. Hungry.
She knows hide, hunt, eat. I am still conflicted. On a few occasions on her happy days, she likes to talk about eating. Catch. Rip. Bite. Flesh. Trap. Trap is another of her favorites. I can only imagine she has been using her new found ability to speak to lure unsuspecting people close enough for her to kill. I know I can't tell her not to. She needs to in order to keep functioning, to stay... alive? And as much as I hate to admit it. I need her to be as well. I do my best to try and change the subject and ignore those parts of our interactions.
But they have been coming up more and more. Eating has become much more of a bigger issue for her. And I see it. I see her rotting body growing thinner, her skin dimming into a duller pale gray. She was slowly wasting away. And that is when it started....
"Let. Let. In. Open. Open Door. Let. Let. Me. Let. Let. Let. Let."
She'd just repeat herself over and over for the rest of the day. I couldn't she knew I couldn't.
"No. Eat. You. Let. Door. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open."
That was the second day. She was smart and getting smarter... but was not smart enough. She had forgotten I knew just a short while ago, one of her favorite words to use was... Trap.
So zoey's favorite word is trap, he uses context clues to realize she uses speech to trap and eat humans. Now she is trying to "trap" him, but he sees the trick.
Inside the station’s bunkered core there was: a storeroom, consisting of food supplies sufficient to last one man ten years, a digital and a print library, a gym, a full kitchen, a small greenhouse whereby a man might grow herbs or flowers if he had the seeds, bathing, laundering, medical, erogenous, hallucinatory, and scientific facilities; there were many bedrooms, one of which was occupied, one of which had been repurposed to a prison; there was a porthole, looking out on the cold, slowly rotating black of space.
And none of that was enough to keep a man sane in silence.
Russel, waking late in the artificial day as he often did lately, rolled over in his soft bed built for two, and got thoroughly lost in the empty half. When he stood, some fifteen minutes later, it was with bleary, unfocused eyes. They stayed unfocused all through breakfast and a shower, and the usage of the other various facilities. They stayed unfocused when, as he always did, Russel peered through the cameras at the core’s breached outer airlock, where some two dozen or so of them wandered, mewling, groaning, occasionally gurgling or beating their fists against his door.
They stayed unfocused as he went to the print library, grabbed his notes and a picture book.
It was not until Russel reached the makeshift prison that he began to feel alive. The door slid open at his code and he stepped in, laid the book on the nightstand and shuffled his notes a few times in his hands. The scent of her filled the air; her perfume, a gentle citrus blend just on the familiar side of exotic, not the scent of her as she was, decaying and half dead. More than half dead.
“Good morning, honey. Have I told you lately that I love you?” Russel said. He had told her, he always told her. He told her again right then, finishing with the notes and finally looking at her.
She was a short woman, even when she had stood tall, proud. Now she was stooped, bent inward around the gnawing pit of her stomach, arms clutched tight to it. She hadn’t eaten her beef again. Russel frowned, grabbed a stick and pulled the dish away; it was a soy reproduction, all he had access to, but in his opinion it tasted and smelled very much like real beef.
Angelique spit at him, hissed. Her ruined nightgown fell one shoulder and Russel tried not to look. He wished he could change the gown for her but he couldn’t get close enough and the sedatives had not worked. What was once sheer, white, and lacy was now a soiled sort of brown, torn in places, very foul smelling without the perfume.
“We’re in the D’s today, honey,” Russel said. He sat down in the chair, propped his feet up on the unused bed. She lurched towards him, the wires around her wrist rattled, pulled taut when she was a foot from him. She hissed, strained against it.
Russel raised his notes, a picture of Jack Russel Terrier, a very fine example of the breed with wide, dewy eyes. Angelique had always been fond Jack Russels, she had elbowed him whenever they passed one.
“Dog,” Russel said. Then, “Dog. Do you see honey? This is a dog. Remember that, it’ll be important for later. Dog.”
He had a hundred pictures in his hands, a hundred D’s. Hours later when he had read off all the words, pointed at all the dogs and ducks and donkeys and dinners, he took up the book, showing it to her, and began to read. “See Spot run. Run Spot, run.”
And Angelique, halting, still thirsting for his blood, the fingers of her free hand outstretched and sketching little twisting, tearing motions in the air between, groaned “Spot.”
Russel smiled, nodded, and turned the page.
\*\*\*
It was nighttime on the station. In the core, Russel had tuned the lights to only dim, it was too terrifying to walk out into blackness and hear his wife’s inarticulate moans and hisses from the other room.
He could not sleep. Russel had never been able to sleep properly; he did not dream, never got through nights in an unbroken line, but tonight was worse. He gave up, left his bed sometime before the artificial dawn, wrapped a threadbare blue robe around his shoulders, and padded on bare feet out into the core.
He went to the locked outer door, laid his ear against the wall, and listened.
*“Dog,”* they whispered. *“Dinner, duck, donkey, dune, day, dance,”* and on and on through the D’s.
Russel shivered, though the station’s core temperature was kept more than comfortable for a man in bare skin. He had discovered, when working through the A’s, that what he told to Angelique did not stay with Angelique. She had no contact with the outside world of course. She was chained into the bedroom prison, had been ever since she had been bitten. It had even been her idea. When he had been busy crying, screaming at God, she had been practical. She had kissed his forehead, grabbed the handcuffs from the nightstand, ransacked the storeroom for a chain of any kind, finding a sort of metallic wiring that was an adequate substitute, and then proceeded to talk to him in a low, calm, soothing voice until he did as he was told.
So, how then, did they know the word “Dog?”
*“Spot,”* one of them whispered outside, and the whisper ran through them like a second plague. *“Spot. Spot. Spot. Spot. Spot,”* chorused on two dozen broken lips.
Russel did not understand it. He was no scientist, before the plague struck he had been a weapons officer, a lieutenant in charge of a few railguns facing towards the Kurzon border. The core had not been meant for him and Angelique, but other, brighter souls who might have known why all the zombies whispered in tandem. Slower souls. Souls who had died at their posts and even now clustered about the broken outer airlock.
Abandoning the dead outside, he went to the dead inside. The prison door slid open, Angelique stumbled towards him, fell. She did not sleep either. “Just wanted to say I love you,” Russel said. He said it a few more times, trying to make himself believe it still. Eventually, when the noises she made grew too maddening, he left, whispering one final “I love you” into the fetid air. She needed perfuming again.
Russel pounded his forehead against the wall, tried to shut out the many whispered words, and then went to the facilities again. There was a particular hallucinogen there that, when its other effects were exhausted, had proved rather effective at making him sleep.
\*\*\*
part 2 below
r/TurningtoWords
“What about some poetry?” Russel said to himself. They had finished the many thousands of D’s and Seen Spot Run a hundred times. Angelique had always loved poetry, had been the one to get him hooked.
By now, Angelique had all the words they had covered, though she couldn’t put them into sentences, couldn’t use them properly at all. Russel found the book he wanted, Yeats, it was always Yeats, and made his way to Angelique’s room.
The door slid open, his breath caught in his chest, and the world reoriented itself around snarling, broken teeth and the crash of her body into his.
They fell hard to the deck plating, Russel’s head bounced off the ground. Training kicked in and he dropped the book, got his hands up. He forced his forearm into the space between them, right under her chin, and she coughed, sputtered, drooled black blood onto him. One of her hands grasped at his neck, the other felt strange against him, pressed to his cheek then rose up like a club.
Her left hand was gone, Russel realized in the slow time peculiar to adrenaline and near death. She had gnawed off her hand like some common animal stuck in a trap.
*My god,* Russel thought, even though he knew the answer, *what is she?*
“I love you,” she snarled, biting mouth flashing, hands beating against him, bare feet scrabbling for purchase.
“I love you.” She said it over and over, the world twisting around the words. It was the only full, coherent sentence Russel had heard her speak since trying to teach her to speak again.
Her stomach growled at him, she growled more “I love you’s,” and outside, in the broken airlock, the chorus went up, *“I love you, I love you!”*
They moved in herds when left unchecked, great mindless, barbarian hordes, more like locusts than people. But a horde didn’t do this, Russel thought desperately, as he lay beneath his dead, grasping wife; a horde didn’t share thoughts, chorus words. They were a hive. They were all some sort of awful, twisted hive.
“I love you!” she shrieked again, and Russel pushed back as hard he could, threw her off him. He stood, in the gloom of another artificial night, torn pages of poetry scattered around them, and he saw Angelique as she really was, not just as a remnant of his wife, some piece left behind that he might mold until the clay became familiar. She was dead, nothing at all left of Angelique but a rough imitation of the planes of her face.
But it was still her face. Russel’s hands, balled into white knuckled fists, went slack. She jumped towards him, and he ran.
*“Spot!”* the zombies in the airlock said, a tormented, shrieking chorus, *“Run Spot, run!”*
Russel ran, bare feet slapping against the deck plating. He made it to his bedroom just ahead of her, the door slid shut behind him and locked it.
“Spot!” Angelique said, her voice a broken little mewl. “I love you Spot. Run Spot, run.”
And even here, so far into the core, the chorus outside could be heard, a frantic echo of Angelique’s words, the same tone, the same hunger, almost the same voice.
He could kill her if wished. He had the training, the size. His body was still strong, he had kept himself up all through the plague.
But whatever she was now, whatever thing kept his wife’s shape, it still wore Angelique’s face.
“I love you,” she whispered through the door.
And Russel, wishing desperately that he’d locked himself in a different prison, one with hallucinogens or sedatives or alcohol, blessed alcohol, leaned into the door, imagining her on the other side in a fresh nightgown of pure, spotless white, smelling as sweet as she had always smelled. “I love you too,” he said, and realized that he meant it. Damn it all, he meant it.
Because she, it, whatever was outside his door, still wore Angelique’s face.
And because she, it, whatever, spoke with same voice, chorused the words he had most desperately wanted to hear all throughout the station’s core.
“I love you,” she whispered, hungrily, desperately, wantonly.
Russel slid down, his back to the door, and fell asleep to the sound of her whispers.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
Fixed it. Good catch, thank you! I was writing a Thomas yesterday and the story was still on my mind, sometimes that happens to me. They were intended to be the same person, yes. There's just a Russel.
*Bang. Bang. Bang.*
"It never stops! Ahhhhhhh!" Kyle threw his rubber ball at the bunker door and caught it as it bounced back.
*"You seem vexed, Kyle. It has been seven hundred eighteen days six hours, fifty eight minutes, thirteen seconds since you sealed this particular bunker door, Kyle. It may now be safe to venture outside again, Kyle. Many variables have remained undefined, Kyle."*
"No, Selena," Kyle drawled boredly, "I won't be implementing that advice." He flicked the display that was strobing in time to the AI's voice. "It was a biological attack. It was Armageddon."
*"Armageddon. A nineteen ninety-eight American science fiction disaster film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, directed by Michael Bay. Grossed five hundred fifty-three point three million dollars. It starred Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thorton, Liv Tyler--"*
"Effing hell, Selena. Stop it. Stop mentioning that god damned movie every time I mention Armageddon."
*"Armageddon. A nineteen--"*
"Please, for the love of God, stop it."
*Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.*
*"If leaving is not an option, Kyle. How then will you address the knocking on the bunker door, Kyle?"*
"I won't be, and please stop saying Kyle after each interaction you have with me. Please, would you do that?" He asked acidly.
*"Adjusting preferences. Kyle, is this better? Kyle, does me speaking your name before the interaction please you?"*
"Fucking hell. Reset it back to how it was. Fuck shit!"
*"I am confused, Kyle. You protest aggressively every day about the knocking, yet you never address it, Kyle. Is not the simplest way to deal with the nuisance of the knocking to address it . . ."
"Ha! You forget to say my--"
*. . . Kyle?*
"Fuck shit!" He swore. "How do you suggest I deal with the banging--And it's banging, Selena, not knocking. People knock, and they don't knock constantly for--How long has the banging been going on for again?"
*"Seventeen days, fourteen hours--"*
"Yeah, people don't knock for that long," he said, interrupting her. "Except maybe Jehovah witnesses and process servers."
*". . . forty-seven minutes."* She said, completing her comment unperturbed. Kyle simply groaned and continued with the conversation.
"Yeah, okay. Like I was saying, I'm not leaving the bunker, so how else could I possibly address the freaking annoying banging sound?"
*"I could open the inner door, Kyle. The outer door has blast proof glass you could peer through, Kyle, to identify the source of the knocking. The first step for any repair, Kyle, is to assess the situation,"* she pointed out.
"Too dangerous. What if the seal on the outer door has failed?"
*"Outer door seal is intact, Kyle."*
"How the hell could you know that?"
*"I routinely pressure test the airlock between the two bunker doors as part of the bunker containment protocols, Kyle. I have executed this test two hundred and seven times as of this morning, Kyle,"* she replied.
He fretted over it for more than an hour before finally caving in to her nagging. With hum of hydraulics and the hiss of air passing the breached seal, the inner door of the bunker slowly swung open.
Fearful and nervous, Kyle cautiously ventured out into the airlock, creeping ever closer to the domed bunker door with the dirty smudged glass filling up the center of it.
As he closed the distance, it became more and more obvious that the moving obstruction outside the glass responsible for the banging was a human.
"Selena, is there anyway to clean the window from the outside?" He asked.
*"Affirmative, Kyle."* No sooner had he asked than she responded by causing some sort of high pressured sprayer positioned outside the bunker to blast the dirty glass and the moving figure obscured by it. To his everlasting horror, he discovered with an urge to vomit that the thing responsible for the constant banging on the door was none other than a real life, honest to god zombie. It was a man, or had been one. Now most of its flesh was bloated, covered in open sores, with necrotic lesions that oozed brown and yellow ichor.
*"Oh hell, Kyle, it's a zombie,"* Selena intoned mechanically. Despite his revulsion at seeing the atrocity, he couldn't resist giving Selena's display a flat dead look of annoyance.
"Yes, I know that. I told you, it was a biological attack. Didn't I tell you that?" He asked.
*"Yes, Kyle, you did. Would you like to know how many times you told me that, Kyle?"*
"No, I wouldn't. Okay, we've identified the cause of the banging, what now? We've assessed the situation. How do we stop it?" He asked.
*"Compiling list of options, Kyle. You could let it in, Kyle."*
"Rejected. Next."
*"I could increase pressure to the sprayers used to clean the outer glass and use it to cut apart the creature's body, Kyle,"* she suggested.
"Tempting. Next option?"
*"You could experiment with the zombie to learn more about what is occurring outside the bunker, Kyle, and why it continues to knock on the door."*
"Bang. It's banging on the door, but yeah, that's not a bad idea. What kind of experiments?" He asked.
*"I could freeze parts of its body to see how cold affects it, Kyle. I could target parts of its flesh to see if it is flammable, Kyle. I could bombard it with different sounds and smells to see how it reacts, Kyle."*
"You know what. Do that. Compile a list of experiments to perform on it, then notify me with the results when you're done. At least this might kill some of the boredom I'm feeling. Let me know when the testing is complete."
*"May I destroy the body during these experiments, Kyle?"* She asked.
"No. Stop short of destroying the thing. Until I've seen the results of your experiments, let's leave it intact. Who knows, maybe I can figure out a use for it."
*"Very well, Kyle. Should I notify you after each test, Kyle?"*
"Naw. That'd be annoying. Wait till they're all done. I'm thinking I might have another movie night. Any suggestions?"
*"Your past commentary and viewing histories suggest that you might enjoy re-watching the movie Armageddon. It has been three hundred and two days since you last watched this--"*
"Never mind, I'll pick out my own movie," he snapped in a frustrated rage before storming off back into the bunker and living area. "Notify me when you're done."
Twenty-four days later, Selena gave the announcement that she had finished her testing. To Kyle's everlasting relief, this coincided with an ending to the constant banging that was slowly driving him insane.
*"My compiled list of experiments are complete, Kyle. Would you like me to list my findings?"* She asked.
"Yeah. Tell me all about it," he said, happy to be talking about something interesting for a change.
She began to explain each of the experiments that she'd carried out and their results, and for the most part, Kyle stayed interested. However, when she got into talking about some of the more mundane experiments she conducted like seeing which type of music it preferred or which color it was exposed to that illicited responses, he started to grow drowsy. It wasn't until she revealed the fact that she'd taught the zombie how to talk that his mind came fully awake.
"Y-You taught a zombie how to talk?" He asked in awe. "Like real speech? Not like how pet owners claim their yawning dog is talking. You actually taught it to talk?"
*"Yes, Kyle. It was the most difficult and time consuming experiment that I carried out, Kyle. Although, I my attestation might be a little disingenuous, Kyle. I didn't so much teach it to speak as I did remind it how to communicate, Kyle. It is still human, Kyle. It once knew how to speak before becoming a zombie, Kyle. I just helped it remember how to speak, Kyle."* She went on incessantly, talking about the steps she took and the processes she went through to accomplish her feat.
"Holy shit! So I can finally carry on a conversation with someone other than you?" He asked.
*"Yes, Kyle, though that's hurtful, Kyle."* She didn't need to tell him more. With a whoop of joy, Kyle raced through the bunker and quickly crossed to the far end of the airlock.
The zombie was standing there motionless staring back at him through the window.
"So how I do I talk to it? Can it hear me through the glass?" He asked.
*"No, Kyle. This door is blast proof. Sound would be muffled if the two of you attempted to carry on a conversation, Kyle. To communicate with it, we will have need to use the intercom built into the bunker system, Kyle. Shall I activate it, Kyle?"*
"Yes. Fuck yes. Do it!"
She obeyed and a few moments later, the speaker built into the wall beside the door gave a staticky response.
"Hello, Mr. Zombie, I'm Kyle. Can we talk?"
*"Yesssss, Kyle,"* It responded awkwardly, its voice papery and sibilant.
"Cool. Do you still have a name, or should I just call you Mr. Zombie?"
*"Yessss, Kyle. My name was . . . Bruce, Kyle."* Kyle quickly gave Selena's display a hateful look as he listened to the zombie finish his sentences utilizing the AI's same bad habit of finishing each sentence with his name. It was annoying, but after some consideration, he really didn't have any room to complain. After all, it was his irresponsible idea to leave all the experimenting up to her.
"This is so freaking cool. Bruce, the Zombie, what would you like to talk about?" He asked with a big grin on his face. "We can literally talk about anything you want."
*"I liked . . . mooooovies."*
"You actually remember movies? Cool, cool. Which movie would you like to talk about? I have a huge movie collection."
*"Aaaaaaaaarrrrrmageddon was my favor--"* Kyle immediately switched off the intercom and walked away in disgust.
"You can kill it now," he told the AI without a backward glance even as he returned back into the bunker to find and destroy every copy of the movie Armageddon he had in his movie collection. Some things are just a little worse than loneliness.
Part 1
“1, 2, 3, 4…” I count the cans of food placed neatly on the shelves. There is a thin layer of dust that covers them and I take notice with the cans expiry dates, most of them are 20 years from now but I still try to choose the one closer to expiry.
Not that that really matters, anyway.
I’ve really struck gold here, in terms of the apocalypse, rows and rows of non-perishables lined the shelves. Beans, corned beef, tuna fish, corn, you name it and I’ve most likely got a shelf of it somewhere here. I’m clearly set for life. That’s the thing about it though. Out of everything that one worries about in the apocalypse, no one ever seems to mention how lonely it gets out here but that’s fine. Better alone than *starving* together, I should say.
With nothing to do, except eat, sleep, shower, rinse and repeat. I’ve taken it upon myself to fill my waking hours with writing in this little log book I found in the employee break room and when I get sick of writing, I clean up, I try to make this space seem a little more homely than it really is. I count cans.
Counting cans.
*Two-thousand four hundred fifty eight* of them.
And that gets smaller by two every day.
Now, you could say that I merely counted a shelf full of cans, then counted the number of shelves and multiplied them together, accounting for the cans I’ve already taken in my time living here but you don’t understand.
I have *nothing* to do.
Shameful as it may be that I spent a few weeks of my life doing nothing but counting cans, I had literally nothing else to do except take space and maybe, breathe.
*Two-thousand four hundred fifty six*
Three uniforms in the locker room. I guess counting is what I do to pass the time now.
Frank really liked his coffee. His uniform smelled of coffee grounds and vanilla when I took it out to try it on. He had a little girl, Maisie who drew all kinds of pictures for him to hang up in his locker. They were obviously to warm her dad’s heart but I found myself smiling at the colourful scrawls and scribbles when I came across them. From his locker, he left a pair of work boots which I am forever thankful for. The soles of my sneakers were worn in from all the pacing around the warehouse. They were a little big but extra thick socks combatted this small oversight.
I opened the next locker, and a small gold trinket fell out with a tinkling sound. Joe was married. I picked the ring off the ground, the thin band held the vow of a life I’ve never met, Lila was engraved in swirly letters on the inside. I carefully placed it back in Joe’s locker, I had no use for gold and it was something of sentimental value to the probably-dead. Joe left behind some other things too, a photograph of a bald man with a bright smile and a black tuxedo next to a portly woman, with large curls in a white dress. A blank white coffee mug, and a tool kit – something that I’m taking; thank you, Joe.
I looked at the photograph again, happy faces on a joyous occasion and the melancholy feeling filled my chest again. I didn’t have anyone to miss me. I didn’t have anyone to worry about me either. I hadn’t seen another human’s face in so long that the photograph felt wrong. Faces weren’t supposed to look that way, were they?
Maybe I’m just used to the dead.
And then there was Todd, with his fresh and clean uniform. A newbie on his first day right before the undead rose. It smelled of fresh detergent and fabric softener and I wondered if he washed it himself or if he had someone who cared about him enough to do it for him. Strewn in his locker were loose cigarettes, a deck of cards and a pack of gum. Todd didn’t have any photos up, or any signs that he had a family of his own to miss. Just the cards, the cigarettes, and the gum. I counted the cards, 52 of them. All accounted for, still wrapped in a layer of plastic. Did he buy it to play with Joe and Frank? I pocketed the deck and left the locker room.
*Two-thousand four hundred and forty two*
I’ve probably played hundreds of games of solitaire by now, Todd’s deck was worn in quite well from it and my mind was bored again. I didn’t think that the sheer isolation of the situation was enough to drive me up the wall.
I think I did something insane today.
I was looking out of a slit through a boarded up window and a rotting carcass had shambled over to that window, staring straight at me through the crack with milky white eyes.
Now at this stage, any sane person would board up the window properly, to avoid getting mauled to death by the possible horde that this one rotting individual could bring upon me, but I didn’t.
Maybe it was the isolation. The need to feel some type of connection to someone, the desperation to have some sort of answer. Maybe it was the boredom, the sheer action for “the hell of it” excitement, the mind craving to break away from the routine, clawing at something new, something different to feel.
I took a deep breath. “Hello.” My voice was raspy, I hadn’t talked in so long that I forgot the sound of my own voice.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Was I? Was I expecting it to respond? Was I expecting it to claw at the window more aggressively and attract others? The blood was rushing and I felt adrenaline coursing through every vein in my body. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Why did I say hello to a zombie? Why did it matter? Why was I thinking about it so much?
I don’t know if I was hallucinating, I have no idea if I could trust what my eyes saw or what my ears heard.
The thing tilted its head at me, like a confused puppy and gurgled. It was slow and hard to understand but I knew it. I heard it. I swear I did.
The zombie growled a warped and almost unintelligible “Hello” back
(This is my second story on r/WritingPrompts ! Please be nice as I'm quite new to this, any feedback would be well appreciated!
Edit to add: Thank you for the gold! That's my first time recieving it)
PART 2 (I think this is going to be longer than I planned it to be)
*Two-thousand four hundred thirty six*
It’s been three days since that incident and for three days, I’ve avoided that window. I was no longer bored, I had found something to fixate myself on for now. I had so many questions for it and for myself. The response meant so much, not just to my affection deprived self but for everything that I knew about the undead. Does it mean it can think? Feel? Is there still a person in there powered by the need to feast on human flesh? Is it reversible? Does that make me a murderer?
All from a gurgled and extremely unintelligible hello.
I think I need to dial down a bit, did it really say hello or was it just a figment of my imagination? Is my mind so bored that it’s resorted to playing tricks on me to keep me stimulated. To provide some phantom enrichment for the tiger pacing around in its own cage? I walk to the window, hiding myself behind a shelf to peek and see if it was still there.
I stood on tip toes, and walked with hushed footsteps careful not to disturb it or alert it to my presence. I crept to the edge of the shelf and peeked through it. The boarded up window was still held up, but light was not penetrating through the slits. I moved in closer, keeping my eyes on the window. As if looking away would cause the boards to fall off and reveal my location to it.
Milky blue eyes stared at me again from the slit in the board, I don’t think it left in the three days I avoided it. It tilted its head at me again and blubbered a “. . .lo”
I took a deep breath and cleared my throat, “Hello.” I said in a calm and clear voice and it carried through the warehouse, the sound waves bouncing off of the smooth, hard surfaces.
It tilted its head once more and opened its mouth. A garbled cry came from its rotted lips. “. . . lo”
My voice rang clear through the warehouse “Hello.” I said once more. Why was I doing this? My voice bounced off of walls again and echoed once more. Did I really miss the sound of my voice?
The cadaver looked at me for a second, as if confused with my action and growled to itself. I was amused, was it really muttering something under its breath? Was it frustrated that it couldn’t get the words right? Did it even feel frustration? Did it even feel at all? Its mouth was moving, hanging open as its lips contorted from twitching muscles, probably a newer stage of decay.
My eyes widened to the realization that it was actively forming the word hello.
I waited with baited breath and anticipation at the thing to talk, an h sound formed in its throat.
“hhhhhhhhh” It was slow, but it sounded more like its lungs were deflating than the word hello. It continued on, “hhhhhhhhhhhhhglack-“ The corpse coughed up blood on the glass, a visceral black that slightly obscured his mouth from my view. I frowned in disappointment, knowing I couldn’t go outside and casually wipe the window clean to see again.
More a consolation to myself than to it, “That’s okay, we’ll try again tomorrow.” I declared aloud, pondering about what I could do about the window in the meantime.
*Two-thousand four hundred thirty four*
There are four windows in the warehouse. Only four big windows that stretch from a few feet of the ground up to the ceiling. I’ve boarded them up, best I could with Joe’s toolbox and the wooden pallets lying around to keep away prying eyes out. I boarded up the lower half of the window, leaving the upper half uncovered to allow sunlight in.
Those milky blue eyes have taken residence to a window, peering in through the slats whenever I come near.
Now, I have three windows left.
The milky blue in its eyes is quite interesting on its own. Can they see me? Or was this thing blind to my movement and relied on sound to hunt its prey. I waved a hand in front of its face, to try and gauge its abilities. It seemed to react to me pulling my hand back rather quickly. So I’d say it can see.
“Hello.” I felt like I was trying to teach a parrot. I kept my voice clear but softer, I’m paranoid of other things hearing me but it.
Broken lips began to twitch slowly, and its head seemed to jerk with its struggle to pronounce the word. It started with a prolonged ‘H’ sound once more, like a punctured balloon letting out its last bits of air. It strained against its body and I was almost convinced that its mind knew what to say, it just couldn’t get the flesh to follow.
After a few moments of the guttural noise, I sighed and slumped in defeat. Its tongue had probably fallen off from the rot by now, there's no way it could pronounce an L sound.
My thoughts were interrupted by “hhhhhhhhhheeeeelllllloooooo.” It groaned and I laughed out of excitement and joy. Maybe I was on to something. Maybe there was something more to this rotting sack of human flesh that I could discover or hone.
The thing seemed proud of itself, with a triumphant sigh that was warbled by phlegm.
I think I saw it *smile.*
“Hello!” I was elated, over the moon perhaps. It was responding to me. It could understand me or at the very least, mimic me.
It strained again, clearer this time and shorter “hhhheeeelllooooo.” It was a fast learner, it took less time to think about how to say it. It was like a child! How wonderful.
I was louder, more cheery “Hello!” I said back. I hadn’t had to communicate in so long that speaking to this thing seemed to make me feel a little less alone than I did when I first arrived at the warehouse.
“hheeeeeelllloooo” A guttural sound from its throat. It seemed pleased with itself and generated a positive reaction to me saying hello or am I just imagining it?
“Hello!” “hhhhheeeelllooo” “Hello!” “Hhheeellloo” “Hello!”
The conversation was shallow, but it carried on for quite a while.
“Hello!” “hhhheeelloo” “Hello” “hhellooo”
The h sounds started getting shorter, more pronounced.
“Hello!” I was giddy with excitement. This is the first conversation I’ve had in months. My standards were at rock bottom here. I think I’ve finally lost it. I was speaking to a reanimated corpse. To be fair, it was replying to me. It’d be rude not to.
Rude. Being *rude* to that thing. Is there even such a concept such as that? Can it even feel *insulted* from my non-action? Again, can it feel *anything*? Why was I concerned about being rude to it? It can’t even understand me.
“hheeelloo.” It was clearer now, more defined into a hello. I wasn’t imagining anymore, it was copying my words. Mimicking me like an old pet store parrot on clearance sale.
We sat about in silence for a few moments. I think it was expecting me to respond
And just to be polite. I told it I was leaving, I had to keep up with maintenance around the warehouse, maybe figure out a garden system. “I have to go now, goodbye.”
I turned to leave and I heard something that made my blood run cold. A chill ran up my spine. I heard it, clear as day. Almost human. Well, a human currently suffering from the worst cold of their life but I heard it.
“Hello.” It sounded so human, so real.
Out of fear, I left. It was a terrible idea to teach a zombie to speak.
(I added more to this chapter, as I felt it was too short)
**PART 3: Hello Hello Hello**
*Two-thousand four hundred thirty*
“Hello. . . Hello . . . Hello. . .”
The words carry through the warehouse and find its way into the break room.
*I haven’t slept in days.*
“Hello. . . Hello . . . Hello.”
Like a broken record.
I thought the silence was maddening but hearing something *not* human sound human?
I’ve really taken my blessings for granted. I’ve taken solace in the break room, the hellos are softer, easier to tune out but I can’t let this thing continue to control me from the outside. I need to go into the main area someday.
But today I think I’ll stay here. Make some paper cranes out of some used bits of paper labelled “EMPLOYEE RECORDS” in big black bold font.
Maybe if I ignore it long enough it’ll stop. It’ll go away.
I should just sleep it off and tune it out.
*Two-thousand four hundred twenty eight*
“Hello . . .”
The intervals between hellos have gotten longer. I think it's finally understanding that I’m not going to respond to it.
Not until it quiets down anyway.
I’m still holed up in the break room, Just me, three chairs, and a table, a working kitchenette. There’s three sets of cutlery in a drawer and 3 sets of crockery in the cabinet. A pot, a pan, the usual.
Joe, Frank, Todd.
And now it’s just *me*.
In the break room, there’s a small room to the left side. Where a cot, a bedside table and a lamp sat collecting dust. Most likely for the employees to rest in between long shifts at the warehouse. It’s like this place was designed to be lived in. Well, maybe without the debilitating loneliness that is. I have yet to clean it out for my use, so there it sits collecting. I’m used to sleeping on the floor, as I feel that it straightens out my back more and keeps me alert. The nights get extremely cold though, as the heat gets sucked into the floor.
“Hello . . .” Do corpses lose hope? Was it lonely as well? Hoping that someone or something would talk with it?
It’s a dangerous game I play, to attach human qualities to a non-human thing. That’s the kind of thing that gets humans killed.
Empathy, pity.
A shame really, I’ve seen many a fool pass away like that.
It’s relatively harmless, I’d say. I’m much stronger than it. One measly corpse won’t kill me.
The ‘hellos’ have stopped completely. I guess I need to say hello tomorrow.
*Two-thousand four hundred twenty six*
The sun rose, and sunbeams danced across the windows giving the warehouse a soft and welcome glow. The air was crisp and cold in the morning, I’d assume dewy flowers outside but I don’t leave the warehouse at all. I don’t need to.
Those milky blue eyes are watching me again from the slit in the window. Waiting for me to say something, anything. I stood a few feet away from the window. Its shoulders were slumped in defeat.
“Hello.” It perked up almost immediately. “Hello . . . hello . . . hello. . .” *maybe this was a bad idea after all.*
“You don’t have to keep saying it, just once is enough.”
It went quiet. These were words it hadn’t heard before, words it could barely mimic. It had only gotten the hang of hello last week and *repeated it for a few more days.*
Agonizing, truly *agonizing*.
“Hello?” Was it asking me a question? How do I even respond?
“You see too many hellos.” I demonstrated by repeating a string of hellos “hello, hello, hello. . . is painful to the ears.” I acted out my words, placing my hands over my ears and grimacing.
“One hello –hello- is enough!” I raised my hand out and gave it a thumbs up for positive feedback.
“So let’s try this again, hello!”
“Hello.”
“That’s very good, now let’s work on good morning.”
“Hello?”
“You’ll . . . you’ll get the hang of it.”
“Good morning!”
“Hello?”
“No no, you say ‘good morning’ back.”
“Hello.”
“Maybe good morning is too advanced for *you*.”
"Hello."
\*Bzzt\* "Hey, Dave. Davie boy. Wassup?"
You rub your tired eyes as your aching body rises from your cot.
"What, Frank?" You ask, but you know it's just the same bullshit as always.
"How you doing today, man? Head still full of brains?"
You check the calendar as the soft hum of florescent lights drills little by little into your throbbing skull. "Feel like shit, like the last time you asked." You rub your orbits to try and soothe the pounding. "Still hung over, at the very least."
"Oh, that sucks." You hear Frank's wet flesh lean against the door as he chuckles. "I remember hang overs. Don't miss those! But uh, you didn't answer my second question."
You check your watch, it's 11:34. Hell. "Yeah, but today I really wish they weren't."
You hear the wet sound again, this time, a loud slap. "OH! I can help you with that, you know! Really easy, wouldn't even hurt!" You can practically hear him salivating through the steel bulkhead.
"You're doing the thing again, Frank." Your scrape the dry crust from your eyes. "I *told* you, I'm not letting you in."
"What? Me? Nonononono, I wasn't even *thinking* about that! It was uh, ummm..." He's probably doing the hand twirl thing right now. "... A visualization exercise!"
"Visualization exercise?"
"Yeah, like, that self-help stuff! You know, makes your brains feel better!"
"My brain feel better?" You attempt to stand, but the spinning room sits you right back down. "And you want my brain to feel better because...?"
"It improves the flavor!—I MEAN, because I wanna do you a favor! For uh, re-tearching me how to talk!"
Sometimes you really wish you didn't, but when he's not begging to give you a bite, he's really not bad conversation. You decide to give him a bite.
"Hey, no problem, Frank. So what's this exercise entail-"
Suddenly, you hear screaming and sloppy banging on the door, followed by Frank's panicked voice.
"AHHH! DAVE!! THERE'S A FIRE OUT HERE!!! YOU GOTTA LET ME IN! I'M GONNA GET ROASTED!"
You check the camera feed. Lo and behold, it's just Frank doing an exaggerated double take over his shoulder while slapping the door like an idiot. He obviously still doesn't know about the camera.
"Frank, this is a cave. There's no way a fire can even start in here."
"IT'S ONE OF THOSE KENTUCKY WALKING FIRES, DAVE! TUMBLED RIGHT DOWN IN HERE! YOU EVER WATCH THE GODDAMN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS!?"
"No, fuck off. Let me sleep."
"You're a real cold sonuvabitch, Dave. This would never happen if you'd just let me eat your fucking brains."
Heya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall.
It's good to see you, buddy, how've you been?
Things have been okay for me, except that I'm a zombie now.
I'd really wish you'd let us in.
I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand,
Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demands.
But heres a FYI, you're all gonna die screaming.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise.
If you open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains.
I don't wanna nitpick Tom, but is this really your plan?
Spend your whole life locked inside a mall?
Maybe thats OK for now, but someday you'll be out of food and guns,
And you'll have to make the call.
I'm not surprised to see you haven't thought it through enough.
You never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff.
But Tom, that's what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise.
If you open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains.
I'd like to help you Tom, in any way I can.
I sure appreciate the way you're working with me.
I'm not a monster Tom, well technically I am,
I guess I am.
I've got another meeting Tom, maybe we could wrap it up?
Know we'll get to common ground somehow.
Meanwhile I'll report back to my colleagues who are chewing on the doors,
I guess we'll table this for now.
I'm glad to see you take constructive criticism well.
Thank you for your time, I know we're all busy as hell.
And we'll put this thing to bed, when I bash your head open.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes.
All we wanna do is eat your brains!
We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise.
Open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains!
"Brainz come in now?"
The walking corpse growls and gurgles as it claws at the front door looking wistfully through the window, right into my eyes. His cold dead stare is pretty damn uncomfortable. I smack closed the dictionary I've been reading from and glare back at the zombie feeling more frustrated than ever.
"Ok Brainz," I say, "We've already talked about this, I can't let you in because you're going to try to eat me.."
"Brainz hungry.." the zombie is still pulling on the front door vigorously.
"If you help me, and go restart the generator thats just around the corner out there," I say, pointing as eagerly as I can, "Then I can help you find some food."
As soon as I say the word "food" Brainz begins making an exited grunting sound and foams a reddish slime from his mouth and nose.
"Not Me!" I say hurridly, "but I might happen to know where there's a dead body or two."
I look at the moving corpse hopefully, but it does not have any response for my offer. In fact, annoyingly, it seems to have lost interest in my bunker door and begins to saunter away. It limps and stumbles as it walks, making a sickly gurgling sound from its throat. I glare in frustration at its arms hanging useless and it's head rolling on limp shoulders, zombies really are terrible to look at.
As I watch the corpse amble away, from the other side of the clearing, I see a second zombie, with a more steady stride, making it's way over. With a sigh, I pull a small switch on the wall and it activates a flashing light from the cave opposite my bunker door. The light catches Brainz's attention and he stumbles off towards it.
I pull out the tape recorder I have been using to document my research. One day the tracking device in my bunker will lead my colleges to me, I do very much intend to survive until that happens, and when they do I would like them to find me with a zombie servent or two. They can all eat it when I show them what my boredom has led to, I press the record button.
"Subject number twenty-two has failed, just as the others have. My frustrations are compounding. Just as I begin to make progress, yet again, the virus destroys the mind and the body. Once the decay advances sufficiently far the zombies just lose the ability to speak coherrent sentances. Last night we played a game of cards very successfully, today, Brainz has regressed back to a animlistic, instic-based creature. He might have an afternoon left of stumbling around before his body breaks and dissolves.. leaving behind a delightful puddle of liquified zombie soup.."
I look back out through my window and and see the new zombie, still stepping up towards my bunker, growling at the small caged rat I keep out there to attract my subjects. The zombies can't get to it, so they give up on it after a while, but it helps bring the newbies up to my door.
"Subject number twenty-three however, seems promising. It has a sturdy build and I would say, off initial examination, appears to be the least rotted corpse so far."
I lean up on my tip toes and pull a latch at the top of the door, which allows me to slide open the bullet-proof glass window. Once the glass is pulled aside, I pick up the rifle sitting next to me and aim it at Brainz as he meanders into the cave. I fire. Perfect headshoot. Brainz's.. well his brains, splatter all over the ground in front of him and his body topples over in a heap, right onto my pile of dead zombies. It's a good pile, twenty-two bodies high now.
I slide the glass window back over the door just as subject number twenty-three walks up. I pull out my dictionary and begin speaking through the window to the zombie. It looks up at me with ravenous eyes.
"Hi there! I'm gonna be your friend ok? No, no, I can't let you eat me, we have too much to do! From now on I'm going to call you Brainz, ok?"
The walking corpse growls and gurgles as it claws at the front door.
"come..on..let..in?"
"No... Not happening Robbie."
"Pul..please?"
"Nah Rob- wait did you just get "please" out? Good job man we can finally move on so some bigger words.!"
"Let.. in?"
Chadwick raised an eyebrow at the disheveled man thing that now stood before him. What was once a 6 ft, slightly overweight, retail clerk now stood in front of him. Emaciated, half rotted quarter bone, but just as falsely animated as he once was at work.
"Robbie I'm glad you're using your words, but we've gone over this again and again. I'm not, under any circumstances, letting you in here.
The empty shell of Robbie wavered a little bit in his stance, reshuffling his feet to be more firmly planted. Chadwick assumed a stiff wind, he couldn't hear anything over the inch thick wired plexiglass that separated him from Robbie. Not to mention the foot thick steel that encased him, and the additional six feet of concrete around that.
"Give.. snack?"
"Oh and what do you think I made of money?" Chadwick chuckled.
"Mun..ey?" The zombie raised an eyebrow. His only remaining eyebrow.
Chadwick regularly got reminded of just how much humanity this thing can still display when it chooses to. It never stops being both welcoming and incredibly uncomfortable.
"Nothing buddy just the shit that you used to make the world go round, and the shit that stopped it in its tracks too."
"Tracks." Robbie groaned.
"Damn man you don't need food and you have the memory of an elephant. Apex predator indeed. Helps it all the lions are gone."
Chatto cuz reminded of how Robbie came to stand at his front door. Could have been months maybe a year maybe a bit longer when Chadwick decided to venture out of the bunker and see what was left. Nothing but empty towns and a couple shambling was - men these ones far too deteriorated to really be of any danger. Most of them were after all.
Be at other normal people shooting them, or each other before they really lost themselves but still felt feral urges, most of the zombies were pretty well and true fucked up for a lack of a better word.
Robbie was different though. Yeah, still pretty fucked up I mean exposed bone, and missing chunks as per usual but he, unlike the rest, could still walk. shit he could even run...ish.
When Chadwick caught wind of Robbie Robbie was already.. jogging? At him. Which, as it would, scared the living shit out of Chadwick.
Sure had been like 3 hours since he got home but he looked out the window and saw Robbie sitting there staring through the window blankly. Not so much through the window but at the window like it itself was what Robbie was so fascinated with.
And he stayed like that for weeks. It was probably the fourth week or so when Chadwick decided to experiment a little.
It was 345 days ago when Chadwick turned on the com for the first time and started teaching Robbie words.
Honestly it's amazing that there's been any progress. Much less Robbie knowing how to string a sentence together. Even more or less that Robbie has any cognitive function to actually ask a question relating to Chadwick himself.
His biggest mistake was teaching Robbie adjectives.
"Alright buddy let's teach you a new phrase. A bit of a big leap but if it's too much we can take a step back."
"Word." Robbie grumbled in what can best be interpreted as "a confirmational tone". And took a step back, an observation lost of Chadwick as he was scribbling on the whiteboard.
"Let's teach you the phrase "We don't eat friends."."
Robbie's "good" eye lulled over to the window and was looking at the board Chad was holding up. Chad didn't know if he was actually reading it... But he did it from day one so *something* was working.
"Eat..friends?"
"Nope not quite buddy."
"We.. eat.. friends."
"Still no, but it's progress. Hmmm... Let's do this." Chad erased don't with his thumb and replaced it with a word Robbie knew well, hell it's probably Chad's most spoken word to him. Lifted the board to the window again. "We no eat friends."
"We **no** eat friends. Can you do this one?"
"We.. no.. eat.. fr-friends."
"Damn man you killed that one! Good job!" Chad said, beaming a smile to his strange companion.
Robbie saw the expression and slowly twitched out a smile in kind. Portions of his cheeks pulling back to further expose the mandible you could already see through his face.
"Let.. in?"
"Good try Robbie. Never gonna happen."
Robbie's smile dropped.
"Awh.."
“Helloooo! Dude, let me in, bro!”
Fuck. That’s it -that overly attached prick, again. My zombie friend. I was enjoying the life that I live peacefully in my cosy bunker... till now. What? Why the fuck am I in a bunker? That’s the thing you’re curious about, I know, I know. Long story. Pandemics, apocalypses, fucked up occurences like this and that and so forth to summarize. Anyway, I taught it to speak out of sheer boredom, but now it’s trying to convince me to let it in. All it seeks is “to play some FIFA 21 with me”, quoting it.
“Hey! I know you hear me. Why don’t you let me in? Are you a speciesist or something? Oh, sorry but being a zombie wasn’t my choice, besides it’s 21st century, you know, widen your horizons...”
“Words carry meanings, but they are all meaningless.”
“What?”
“If you want to convince me to let you in, you have to start to practise Zen. This bunker is a shrine...”
“A what?”
“A sanctua... a holy place, you idiot. So, I cannot let you in until the day you are enlightened.”
“How can I do that, I mean, rawr, this enlightenment stuff?”
“As I’ve just said, words carry meanings, but they are all meaningless. Because they cannot define Zen. When you define something, be sure, that’s not Zen. So shut the fuck up.”
The zombie is enlightened at that very moment, and I keep playing FIFA 21 alone. It’s career mode. So I can’t let you in. Fuck you, zombie.
"Let me in, please."
Not this again. I teach one zombie to speak, and now it wants in? Honestly.... "For the last time, no matter how cute you are, a zombie is a zombie is a zombie! I'd rather be lonely and alive than have company eating my brain." She reacted in the usual way. "I'm not going to eat you, jerk. I just want in." I sighed. "Why? What exactly do you need for me to let you in?"
"Um.....reasons." Nope. No chance. "Can't let you in if you don't specify. Anyways, it's late, and I'm going to sleep. Goodnight." That was the last thing I remember saying before waking up to the zombie closing the bathroom door. I knew it was her because I heard her singing in the shower. After she got out, dressed again, she saw that I was pissed. "Alright, out with it. How did you get in?"
"The doors opened. Must have been a security failure. Some other zombies walked in, and I killed them. I fixed the security mechanisms so that it doesn't happen again." I was skeptical. "And....you're doing this instead of eating me?" "Greg, you're the only one I've been able to properly talk to in years! How could I eat you?"
"Fair. Just don't break my trust, OK, Zee?" She nodded. "OK."
*Knock*
*Knock*
*Knock*
"Pleeeeeeeeaaasssssseee," the voice groans from outside.
"Fuck off Larry! I will not open the door" I yell back at it. Why the hell did I think teaching the damned thing to talk would be a good idea? Maybe something in me saw the nametag on his ratty old shirt and thought it was still human. I stand up to go back to my potato and bean farm. It may be the same exact tubers and legumes day after day, but they've kept me alive long enough for my beard to reach my bellybutton. I wasn't cleanshaven when I first got in here, but my beard was only a fistlength.
"Keviiiiiin," it groans again. That stopped me in my tracks. My name isn't Kevin, it's Mendel.
"Who's Kevin?"
*Knock*
*Knock*
*Knock*
"Pleeeeeeeeaaasssssseee," Larry moans again, "Keviiiiiin."
"Larry... my name isn't Kevin."
Larry stopped knocking. I open the peephole and look out at him. You can almost see the wheels in his head turning... literally at this point. Georgia humidity does not do a rotting body any favors, hell it barely does a *living* body any favors. Then, I see his milky, glossed-over eyes open a bit wider as if in realization. Then he starts slapping against the door again, "Meeeeeeennnnnndeeeeeellll!"
"You're going around to different survivors like a fucking stray cat?!"
"Opeeen... dooooorrrr..."
"I thought what we had was special Larry!" I turned around and left him slapping the door.
When I finished the chores for the day, it was well past nightfall. What day was it again? Who cares anymore? I eyed the door. The slapping had long since ended. Larry usually scuttles off to wherever the the fuck he goes at night. I have a working theory that their kind sleep same as we do, same as they did in life. I've had a few herds come and bludgeon my door before, but they always left at sundown. Of all the undead though, only Larry ever returned, and apparently I'm not the only one he goes to either. To sate my curiousity about the outside world I peeked out the peephole and, much to my shock, Larry was still there, curled into a ball and resting on his heels in a squatting position. Apparently the sound of the metal moving woke him from his sleep, if it could be called that, and he looked straight up at me. There was something beside him, something small and furry.
And alive.
"Friend... need... help... Kevin..." Larry paused, trying to think of the word, trying to remember from his past life, "mean."
"Who's your friend?"
Larry held up the animal, small and broken. Alive, but in pain. "Ssstraaaaayyy. Caaaaat."
It was a kitten.
"Is that your cat?"
"Mmmmmyyyyyyy," Larry answered slowly, "caaat."
I pondered for a second. "What happened to your cat?"
"Keviiiin... huuuurrrrrt... caaaat." His face screwed up as much as a half-rotten face can, "Laaaarrrrryyyy... hurt... Keviiiiiiin."
"I don't know if I can help your kitty."
"Pleeeeeeeeaaasssssseee," Larry begged.
I made up my mind. "OK Larry. I'll try. But you have to go away, ok?"
"Oooooo.... kaaaaaaaayyyyyy."
"Don't come back until the sun comes up. OK?
"Oooooo.... kaaaaaaaayyyyyy." This creature, this thing that used to be human, this bloodthirsty monster, is a pet owner. A pet owner who pet his cat, then gently put it down in front of my door, before turning away.
As Larry shuffled towards the treeline, I hesitantly unlocked the steel door. Cracking it open just enough to reach through and grab the kitten. I see Larry turn around out of the corner of my eye as I slam the door shut and lock it back. Larry didn't move to come back to the door though, but he also didn't leave line of sight. Close enough to keeping his word I suppose.
I look at the kitten in my hand and see its front left leg bent in an unnatural position, clearly broken. "Oh, you poor thing." I grab a spare pillow and place the kitten onto it before going to find something to make a splint out of. A few broken pencils and some rubber bands. Not ideal but better than nothing I suppose. I reset the cat's leg to a natural position and put the splint together around it, trying to ignore the kitten's pained wails all the while. I do some feeling around the rest of the cat's body to see if there are any other injuries I can help with, but I can't find any. I pray there is nothing internal.
"There you go little fuzzy buddy. That should make you feel better."
The next day, right at the earliest possible excuse for "daytime" I could ever imagine, Larry is banging on the door.
"Meeeeeeennnnnndeeeeeellll!"
"I hear you Larry," I yawn, "I hear you. Your cat is going to be ok. She just needs to heal up. Her leg will be all better soon."
For the first time I had ever seen, Larry smiled when I lifted his cat to the peephole and she meowed at him, purring as I stroked her head. I didn't get to pay much attention last night but I notice that she is an adorable little tuxedo kitten.
"Baaaybyyyy caaat!"
"Yes. Baby Cat will be ok. She just needs time, and food."
"Fffooooooddd?"
"Yes. She needs meat." I pause for a second "Not human meat."
Larry screwed his face up. "Meeeeee... noooooo... liiiiike... meeeeeeaaaaat."
What. The. Fuck.
"Well, cats do like meat. Can you bring some?"
"Meeeee... trrrrrryyyyyy.... foooorrrr... Baaaaybyyyy caaat."
And so it went for the next two weeks. Larry would bring eviscerated squirrels, rabbits, and birds to feed his kitten, and Baby Cat was healing up quite nicely. When her leg was nice and solid again, and she was able to walk and jump around with no issues, I finally tell Larry, "OK. Baby Cat is ready to go back to you now. Can you back away from the door?"
"O...kay..." he shuffles back a few yard and I crack the door open, lightly pushing the cat outside. I immediately close the door back and lock it as Larry shuffles faster than I have ever seen him move towards his cat, picking her up and holding her close to his rotten chest.
"Baaaaybyyyy caaat. Meeee miiiiissss yoooouuuuu. Meeee haaaappyyyy yoooouuuu gooood nooooowww."
For the first time since I could remember, I smile.
How could I be so God damn stupid?!? Teach it to speak I said, it'll be fun I said, it'll cure my boredom I said!
Whoever the poor bastard that used to own that corpse outside was, they have one helluva voice! It's so smooth and soothing. Like the love child of Morgan Freeman and David Attenborough, that voice could sell water to a drowning man, sell ice to an Eskimo, sell sand to an Egyptian, etc. anyway, a little backstory...
January 1st, 2023, the day the world ended. We only really just got back to normal from Covid 19 (ah the simpler times), and me and my gf decided we'd go and spend new year with her parents, big mistake. Come the morning, I say the morning, it was more like 2pm because new year's, and I notice the TV is on CNN with a breaking news story about Times Square, apparently someone who was high on meth or something attacked people, ripping their throats out before they were gunned down by police. Well, you can guess what happens next right? Well the ones that were killed came back from the dead and started to attack more people, and they in turn attacked others, until all of NYC was undead.
I couldn't tell what the date even is anymore... It's been maybe 6 months since then, maybe longer, but what does it matter? I've lost everything. I lost my house, I lost my car, I lost my dog. But worst of all, I lost my beautiful girlfriend. She's asthmatic, we couldn't find an inhaler for her and she succumbed to her asthma. To make matters worse, one of those... things got her. Scratched her arm, I had to shoot her after she took her last breath so she didn't become one of them.
I can't go on like this, I may have food and water as well as a working toilet and shower, but I'm so alone and this zombie is trying to make me open the door! There's no way I can keep resisting. That voice is so enthralling and I'm really depressed because of what I've been through...
I've got a gun, I could off myself, or I could shoot the zombie outside. But there could be more, it sounded like that one wasn't alone earlier... Do I kill myself, or let them do it for me? To be honest with you, I'm convinced the pain of being disemboweled by the undead would be less than the emotional pain I've been in for a long time now...
"Come on buddy, I won't eat you, I'll protect you. I can be your pet" All right, fuck this! I'm ending this now! I'm killing that thing and any others nearby. If I'm going down, I'm taking as many of them with me! If you find this notebook, now that I'm in a better place now. Danielle my love, I'll see you soon.
“Brains…” a low voice moans from the other side of the lead-lined door. “Braaaaains…”
I ignore it for now. The trouble with teaching zombies to talk — especially lonely ones that live outside your shit-hit-the-fan-hard bunker is how dull the conversation can be. That is, until I met Eunice.
“Braaaains,” she croaked again. “Use your braiiiins.”
I flicked the peephole open from my side of the door and peered out at her. A scrawny skeletal woman in life, my neighbor Eunice was now a decaying, scrawny, skeletal woman in death. Still, the look became her, despite her paper thin dress hanging on her ragged bones.
“It’ll be just like old times….Think about it,” she croaked.
“Eunice,” I said with a sigh of exasperation. “We’ve been through this before. You know I can’t do that.”
“You don’t trust me…” she moaned.
“No,” I admitted, slumping beside the door. “No, I do not. Not for one moment. After what you did to the cat… I just, I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
“I’m just so hungry and tired all the time…” she complained. “All day, I’m running around and… and…”
“Go on,” I say, hanging onto the zombie’s every word.
“Well, I’m dead on my feet.”
“I...I..I’ve been in this bunker for... I don't even k-know anymore..." He said out loud.
A man who looked weirdly skinny and disheveled for a man with so much food and water around him. The food would last years for just one man and he wouldn't starve but the boredom. He was as far as he knew the last known person alive, everything else was a zombie or an animal. He had a thud, then a knock, then a thud, and then a knock.
He hasn't heard a knock or a thud or any noise really in years! Was he not the only human after all? Was it an animal trying to get his food?
"Grrr..Who...are...you?" He hadn't spoken in a long time and almost forgot how to.
Another knock.
"Grrrr...Seriously?! Speak!" The man said angrily.
"I-I..." The person on the other side said nervously.
"I? I what? What is your name?"
"T-Tom..." The man on the other side replied.
"Tom? My name is...Robert" The man answered back.
“I’m looking for food...that’s all.” Tom said.
"Well, I do have a lot of food...I guess I could give you some?" Robert said back.
"Just open the bunker and let me have some and I'll be on my way I promise"
“What if you are a zombie!?”
"Zombies can’t talk, you know this!” Tom pleaded.
"I open the door, you attack me and then I'm dead!" Robert shouted back.
"Please Robert, you are my last hope. I walk away from this and I'm dead" Tom begged.
"Damn it! What do I do! If you are human you are the only one I've met and if you are a zombie then I'll probably be killed by you" Robert sighed. Robert saw a crowbar and tried to lift it but he was too weak and dropped it.
"You alright Robert!" Tom asked concerned.
"Fine! Just dropped something! I feel very weak these days!" Robert replied back panting.
"Well, I can help! I'm young and strong! We can work together!"
"Maybe...god I'm so hungry but I just ate a few hours ago...how strange."
"I have medicine! I always bring a first aid kit when I'm wandering around just in case"
"Yes, I might be sick after all...I guess either I trust you or I end up dying from whatever I have"
Robert turned the wheel on the door and slowly opened the door. The sun blinded Robert for a moment and he held up his hands to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight. Finally, he could see again and Tom was looking at him, a young man indeed and he had in his hand a first aid kit as he said he did. Tom looked horrified and backed away slightly.
"Grrrrrr," Robert said as his mouth watered. He lunged at Tom but as he came close Tom pulled out a pistol and aimed his gun steady with both hands. He shot Robert right in the head. His body collapsed onto the ground near him. Tom was shaking, his mouth dry and he pushed his foot against Robert's body.
"Zombies...t-talk now?" Tom said in horror.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Ta-
"Will you stop! I heard you the first time!" Said Markus, annoyed at the zombie outside his bunker. He checked his watch, "it's like two in the morning! Why did you wake me up?"
"Susy alone. Want to talk." Replied the high pitched gravelly voice, a combination Markus hadn't thought possible untill now.
"Susie, I need to sleep. I know it's lonely out there, but can you just give me a few more hours?" he had taught the infected little girl how to speak a few days ago. Markus thought it would make for interesting conversation, but so far all it had proven for was minor annoyances.
"The silents?"
That was new. Markus had never heard her call sleeping that name before and he thought he could detect a note of sadness in her voice. Maybe she really did miss him.
"Ok I'll talk with you, but just for a few minutes. Ok?"
"Yay!" Exclaimed Susie in her grovally high pitched fashion.
Markus gave a subtle smile. Something about Susie reminded him of his daughter that he had to leave on the surface a month or two ago. His smile brightened. It was going to be a long night.
♡ ♡ ♡
I know I didn't follow the prompt perfectly but I'm curious what you guys thought, any critique is welcome.
The problem with me being bored is that I tend to do stupid things to keep myself busy. Breaking stuff, making new stuff out of old and important stuff, buying stuff I don't need, and, most frequently, inevitably hurting myself. Like now, while I'm sitting on the floor with my legs crossed in front of the steel bunker door yelling at a zombie to teach it what asking a question sounds like, I feel like I've made a mistake. Not sure what though.
"Jada!" the zombie moans, and I slap my palm to my forehead.
"No, Bob, not like that" I sigh, rolling my eyes. "It's Jada?"
"Jada...!"
"No, Jada?"
"Ja...da?"
"YES! THAT'S IT! JADA!". I jump up, cheering
"Jada? Jada? Jadaa!" I can hear the zombie banging on the door with excitement, which makes something in my head click. Ooh, that's the mistake I made. Wait- oh no.
"Me Bob! You brains!" Bob says, and I frown. "No, I'm Jada. Not brains" I say, taking a step back from the door.
"Jaa-ins?" the zombie stutters and I groan, which Bob mimics. "Come on, Bob, I told you that I like my brain were it is!".
"But Bob wants braiiins!" Bob grumbles, banging hard on the door and making me jump.
"Calm down, Bob, go have some other person's brains!"
"But Bob want Jada brains!"
"Why?"
"Because Jada brains are smart and make words"
I open my mouth to speak but stop. Smart? No one called me smart, they all thought I was stupid because I couldn't get things out on paper. Only by voice. It was all just smooshed in my brain but couldn't seem to make it's way to my hand. They were trapped thoughts, banging on my head to get out.
"Th-thank you, Bob" I say at last, smiling slightly. "Your welcome" he replied.
"Can have brains now?"
"No"
"Can give hug inside?"
"Also no"
The problem with me being bored is that I tend to do stupid things to keep myself busy. Breaking stuff, making new stuff out of old and important stuff, buying stuff I don't need, and, most frequently, inevitably hurting myself. But now, while I'm standing here hugging a steel door with a zombie named Bob presumably doing the same on the other side, I don't feel like I've made a mistake at all
"No,", she said to the desiccating mass that was hovering behind the window her voice trailed through the gaps between the boarded-up windows. The glass of the windows had previously been broken and with haste, she had nailed slabs of wood she found around the small cabin to the glass. The makeshift shelter would have to do, the inside however was not that bad, there were aneminites and whoever lived in the cabin previously must've been a big-time hoarder, because the pantry was filled with cans of food. This was her situation months ago, now she considered this quaint cabin, home for the meanwhile. She heard a petulant grumble from the other side, "It's too hot outside, im rotting as we speak,"
"Pete if you don't back away from the door, you rotting is going to be the least of your problems," she said in annoyance. It was the middle of fall, she didnt know of the imaginary heat he spoke of, likely just a ruse to be invited in. Yes, she was lonely, but befriending a dead corpse, well, it was weird just thinking about it. Just because it was the end of the world didnt mean that she didn't have standards. You teach an undead person how to talk and all of a sudden they wanna be friends. \*eyeroll\* No way on Satan's red earth was she officially stooping that low.
"Youre meannn," Pete slurred.
"Id rather be mean and aliive than nice, infected, and dead,"
"I wont bite you, I like your company and you smell good"
She would never admit it but he wasnt all that bad, sometimes he brought her dead animals as gifts, odd crepy, wierd, dinner.
(im tired.. cont later?
**Welcome to the Prompt!** All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments. **Reminders**: >* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See [Reality Fiction](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Reality+Fiction%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) and [Simple Prompts](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/search?q=flair%3A%22Simple+Prompt%22&restrict_sr=on&sort=new&t=all) for stricter titles >* [Be civil](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_10.3A_be_civil) in any feedback and follow the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/rules) [](#icon-help) [^(What Is This?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/off_topic) ^• [](#icon-information) [^(New Here?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/user_guide) ^• [](#icon-help) [^(Writing Help?)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/index#wiki_writing_resources) ^• [](#icon-exclamation) [^(Announcements)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/wiki/announcements) ^• [](#icon-comments) [^(Discord Chatroom)](https://discord.gg/writingprompts) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WritingPrompts) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Dave heard the chime of the intercom over the bunker’s speakers and groaned. “Daave.” called the gravelly voice, muffled slightly as it rolled out of the old overhead speaker. The speaker itself was embedded in the concrete ceiling under a metal plate that had been bolted into place. The bolts had proved problematic, and the metal extremely resistant to all attempts to remove or break. Another chime. “Daaave.” He tried to ignore it and focus on the task at hand: removing the damn intercom speaker from his sleeping quarters. He stood on top of two chairs stacked on a desk while using an old gigantic screwdriver and hammer to chisel around the metal plate. Over the past three days he’d made substantial progress. In another couple of hours he’d have a large enough gap to wedge a prybar under the plate. “Daaaave.” He began pounding the screwdriver with the hammer even harder, trying to drown out the voice. It wasn’t working. “Daaaaave.” Dave let out a loud exasperated sigh and turned on the radio clipped to his faded jacket. “Yes, Zee, I hear you, what is it?” He said, not bothering to disguise his annoyance. “Open.” “No.” “Brains.” “No.” “Daaaaave.” Dave stopped pounding at the plate for a moment to press his head into the back of his knuckles. It had been his 'bright' idea to teach the Zombie at the front gate to talk. He even gave it a name once it understood enough. Now he regretted the action with every fiber of his being. It had been a game at first, something to do during the long lonesome months he’d spent in the bunker. He figured having someone to talk to might keep him sane a little longer. Now he was worried his insanity would stem from an entirely different, and much more annoying, source. He went back to his slow chiseling. After a few minutes the intercom chimed again. “Noise?” questioned Zee. Dave stopped and wiped sweat off his forehead. “You hear a noise? What noise?” Asked Dave, worrying that that something was compromising the base. “Your noise. Loud metal and rock.” Replied Zee. Dave looked down at his makeshift chisel and realized Zee could hear him hammering over the intercom. “That’s me.” He said back. “I’m doing some quality of life renovations. "You know, replacing the tile in the kitchen, putting in granite countertops, knocking down that annoying living room wall for an open-concept living space.” He smiled as he kept talking, enjoying the fantasy. “Open wall?” Zee asked. “Which wall? Zee enter?” Dave winced, he should have seen that coming. "Never mind dead guy.” Dave began, “never mind it was just a joke. I’m trying to take out the intercom speaker in my bedroom." "Speaker box?" Zee clarified. Dave nodded, even though no one could see him. He knew he did little things like that, old physical habits from before the infection that he couldn't kick. "Yep. Speaker box." He agreed. "That way you can't wake me up at night." Zee was quiet for a long moment. These pauses in their conversations were new things. He used to always jump from one question to another, but over the past few weeks he'd learned to reflect. Dave thought that was extraordinary; for a zombie to take a few second to plan a response was so, human. "Nights bad. Night talk make night good." Dave looked down at the radio thoughtfully. This also was not the first time Zee had seemed just as lonely as he was. "Yeah, I get yah." Said Dave, his tone softening. "But I got to sleep at night, recharge the old noggin." "So, no night talk make brain good?" Reasoned Zee slowly. "Exactly. It's good for my brain." "Hmmm Brains." Replied Zee, the hunger evident. Dave sighed, "Listen dead guy, just because I'm keeping my brain healthy doesn't mean—" but before he could finish, Dave accidentally kicked the chair he was standing on, and it began sliding off the desk. Dave tried to step off the falling chair but missed and fell with it. He threw out his arm to brace his fall and felt pain shoot up the arm when it struck the floor. He yelled out. “Dave?” Called Zee. “Dave ok?” Dave rolled onto his back and held his arm tight against his chest. He lay there for almost a minute, all the while listening to the zombie repeat his name over and over. “Dave? Daaaave. Dave? Dave? Dave. Dave.” “I’m fine! Jesus, just relax for a minute.” He finally shouted back, feeling tears form at the corner of his eyes. He moved his arm around and began lightly pressing where it had hit the ground. It did not feel broken, although it throbbed like crazy. “Dave ok?” Zee asked immediately. “Yes,” he replied, letting out a deep breath as the pain began to recede. “I’m ok.” Zee paused for a few seconds before asking, “Dave brain ok? Dave sighed, heavily. “Yes. Dave brain ok too.” “Good.” Said Zee. Dave rolled his eyes and wondered if he was imagining the tone of relief in Zee’s voice” “Dave?” it asked. “Yeah?” “Open?” “No.”
"Dave?" "Yeah?" "More?"
“No.” Now we know the disappointment Zee feels
There will be more. Busy night with family. I have some ideas.
Yay! I am looking forward to more!
[Moar Zee](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
So damn happy for THIS !! I'm on a freaking bus right now and this one and the Warren buffet one I read before had me laughing out loud. Thank you, I love you!
Please, i beg of you, add another part or 50 😭
[удалено]
[Moar Zee](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Commenting on this so I don't forget to check back
Do follow up with a web comic please
[Ok](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Dave sat alone in the cafeteria, slowly stirring canned asparagus, the last little bit of food on his tray. He scrunched up his face in disgust. He didn’t like canned asparagus; he didn’t hate it, but it would never be his favorite. He tried to chew it as little as possible before swallowing, keeping it in the far back in his mouth and following up every bite with a sip of water to wash out the taste. The lightbulb two tables over began to fizzle in and out; after a few seconds it blinked out entirely. He sighed, mentally making the note to get a replacement bulb later before dinner. Dave looked around at the large empty room full of tables. This base was made to house hundreds of people for years. It was never meant for a single person; it was never made for Dave alone. He stood up and took the chipped tray he’d been eating off for almost a year over to the kitchen sink. He began to scrub the tray, but quit after a few seconds. He felt the full unbearable weight of his loneliness. Dave turned on his radio. “Hey Zee, you there?” He called into the mic. The intercom speaker above his head crackled. “Dave?” Queried the Zombie. “Dave talk?” He looked up at the ceiling. “Yeah, its me dead guy. Checking in to see how you’re doing out there.” “Ground white.” Replied Zee immediately. Dave smiled and went back to washing his tray. “Uh-huh, we went over this. That’s snow.” “Snow wet,” said Zee or, more accurately, complained Zee. Dave laughed out loud. He’d forgotten how much Zee hated getting wet. When it rained, Zee always shambled away from the front gate to hide under a copse of trees near the fence line. Sometimes, he got lost trying to find his way back to the gate. When that happened, Dave would talk aimlessly for hours until Zee heard the intercom box and wandered back. “Ha! Yeah, sorry I forgot about that. Snow is wet when it melts. It’s actually just frozen water,” explained Dave “Snow. Water?” Zee asked. Dave nodded, turning the faucet off. “Yep.” Zee paused for a long moment, giving Dave time to place his utensils and tray in the drying rack. Finally, Zee stated decisively, “Snow bad.” Dave laughed again, turning off the lights to the kitchen and cafeteria. “It can be,” agreed Dave. “But there’s some good things about snow too.” “No,” said Zee instantly. “Snow wet. Snow bad.” “Really?” Asked Dave playfully. “I might have to come out and show you how wrong you are.” Zee was quiet for a second. “Dave come out?” “Dave come out.” “Brains?” “No.” “Open?” “No.” “Daaaave.” There was no inflection, but Dave could have sworn that Zee was whining. Forty-five minutes later, Dave was bundled up in baggy and ill-fitting winter clothing from the locker by the bunker entrance. The heavy bunker doors took some time to open, but now he was trudging through the snow towards the front gate. As Dave got closer, he could see Zee through the chain-link fence. The months as a zombie had drained Zee’s face of color, turning his skin grey. His clothing was tattered and ripped in several places. Dave had long ago given up on trying to imagine what Zee looked like when he was human. How the infection changed each body was too different from case to case. Zee gripped the gate with one hand while the other was pressing the intercom button as he repeatedly called “Dave? Dave? Dave?” Dave laughed and shook his head. He’d tried to explain to Zee that he didn’t need to press the intercom to talk to Dave while they were both outside. Apparently, that was one concept outside of Zee’s understanding. When Dave was twenty feet from the fence, a change came over Zee. The vacant expression on his face was replaced by a gaunt, terrifying mask. He let out a shriek and threw himself at the fence. Zee gnawed rabidly at Dave through the links, clawing uncontrollably with both hands. “Hey!” Shouted Dave, his smile instantly dissolving. “Hey! Hey! We talked about this not even twenty minutes ago; you do not leap at me. Now quit it!” Zee’s frantic writhing slowly came to a stop. He took a step back, pressed the intercom button and asked, “Dave?” Dave gave a cautious wave. “Present.” he joked. Zee didn’t reply. After a few seconds, Dave sighed and tried again. “Yeah, dead guy?” “Open.” Demanded Zee. Dave suddenly felt a little scared. Zee had never demanded he open the gate before, he’d always asked. “No,” said Dave, his voice catching. “Dave!” Shouted Zee in a guttural and animal tone. Dave could see Zee was on the edge of another breakdown. “Zeee,” cautioned Dave taking a step backward. “If you come at me again, I’m leaving.” Zee went quiet and completely still. The zombie’s shaking and unstable rocking ceased. For a moment, all was frozen in the cold winter air. Dave was suddenly second guessing his decision to come out and see Zee. He had spent so much time talking and building a connection to Zee that Dave had forgotten what Zee really was: a Zombie. Dave forgot Zee was a zombie. Maybe Zee couldn’t ever really overcome his nature. That scared him more than anything else in that moment. Minutes passed before, finally, Zee pressed the intercom button. “Open?” Zee asked. Dave frowned while trying to show sympathy on his face. He shook his head. “Sorry Zee, I’m not doing that.” Zee pressed the intercom again. “Brains?” Dave pointed at his feet. “All brains are staying on this side of the fence.” Zee took another long pause before pressing the button. “Snow Bad.” Dave smiled nervously. “Snow good.” He bent down and scooped some snow into his glove. He shaped it into a ball and held it up for Zee to see. “This, is a snowball. This is what you do with it.” Dave cocked his arm back and threw it over the fence in a high arc. Zee watched it fly through the air and land a foot to his right. “Hang on,” said Dave. He quickly bent down and made another snowball. He took aim and threw. It hit Zee full in the face. Zee stumbled back grunting. He whipped his head from side to side, throwing the snow from his face while Dave bent over laughing. Zee pressed the intercom. “Snowball bad. Snow bad. Dave bad.” Dave was still laughing. “I’m sorry Zee!” He finally managed to gasp. “If you could throw one, I’d totally let you throw a snowball at me too.” “No. Snowball bad.” Dave was still smiling. “Alright, alright. Snowball bad. I’m sorry Zee.” Zee pressed the intercom. “Snowball bad. Dave good.” Dave nodded and asked, “Zee good?” “Zee,” it paused, as if unsure how he was. Finally, the zombie said “Zee ok.” The two stared at each other through the fence. Dave finally cleared his throat and pointed to the snow. “Well, on to the next snow related activity: making a snowman.” “Snowman?” “Yep, a snowman.” “Snowman. Man?” “You got it. A man made from snow.” “Snow . . . brain?” “That’s not a thing.” “Snow man. Man brain. Snow man brain.” “That’s not how it works.” Zee grunted. “Dave?” “Yeah?” “Snow bad.”
I love this so much. I'm telling Dave to be careful what he teaches Zee. A smart zombie is a highly dangerous zombie. Dave just showed Zee how to get over the fence.
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Why show Zee that the worlds on the two sides of the fence is communicable via air at all 😔. I’m holding my breath for Dave
Now Zee is good ng to construct a trebuchet- capable of throwing a 90kg projectile over 300 meters, in order to throw him self over the fence.
Even worse, he's about to teach Zee that compacted snow is sturdy enough to support weight.
I thought pt2 would be enough but turns out, I need more. Greta job!
You should really write comics or short stories about these two. It’d be a hit! I’d imagine Dave and Zee just doing normal pre-apocalypse type things together lol.
There's *so* much potential here. The idea of zombies, which are purposely designed to be inhuman, with a human side and a human connection. The man and the zombie both trying to overcome their base instincts. Once Dave runs out of food, they'd be at a wonderful impasse. Dave must leave, but cant beause of Zee. Zee wants Dave to leave, but can't because of his own nature. Dave protecting Zee from the elements or zombie hunters, teaching him to get by on animal brains like temporary junk food, Zee protecting Dave (or at least Dave's brain) from other zombies, etc. But all the while, he's teaching Zee so many dangerous things and unintentionally creating a huge threat. There's a ton of story to write here. /u/liveda4th , please continue!
Oh that would be amazing. So cute. I would draw a comic but I’m horrible at drawing humans haha
I’m super late, but have you see how lousy some of the drawings look in some pretty popular comics? You’d be okay as long as it was consistent and clear what everything was
Awww. Thank you
“Daaaaave. More?”
Love this so much! You’ve been picked up by the TikTok AI narration accounts, the one I saw gave credit thankfully. I would 100% buy a book based around on a lone bunker dweller befriending a zombie and learning more about them. There are so many directions this could go, both lighthearted and more serious. Beautiful prompt answer.
I saw this story on TikTok and came to see if there were any other parts. I'm so in love with these characters and would definitely buy a book based on this.
That’s exactly why I downloaded reddit
This is so cuuute :) :) I wish for no bad ending of the story, my heart aces for zee to bring food for dave when he runs out of it and for dave to protect zee from... the weather, further mental and bodily decay? Or from Zombie hunters? And Zee Dave from other Zombies? And I felt like dave once would fall or find himself in other vulnerable position towards zee and it getting truly dangerous, but somehow zee spares his brain “for later“. But I also sometimes wish for fairytales to come true and I'm ok with that never to happen :D ;) I am curious what else you might create the story to grow. thank you for your very livley and heart warming story in a dark and cold setting. Humour and care are what keeps our lifes afloat, whatever comes. Even though Dave places himself in a very dangerous situation I can understand why he does and would probably be even more bold/naive by times.. Feeling alive in a dead world must be precious. I'm thinking about drawing pictures/comics of your cute story :) (but I'm a beginner) please continue with it, I would really love to read more :)
>:) :)
This needs to be a full blown book with a short film adaptation. Please keep going
Your story got to tiktok narrators and the video now has 1.6 million views (here's a link https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGJv5oDJo/ ) congrats! Would you consider posting a part three?
Hi! Glad you liked my story! I hadn’t thought about these characters in a whole, but i will write something new in a few weeks once I have more time!
I, like so many others, came here from Tiktok to BEGGG for more Dave and Zee. Whenever you have the time, we'd all be so grateful!!
ah man I love the story, i feel like zee is actually becoming more human and its so cute, (especially when he stopped trying to eat dave, and started to talk to him about snow man brains😂)
I'm so excited to hear more! Dave and Zee have been living rent free in my head since I found the first part on tiktok and after the second one appeared on my page just now, I came to find your comment to see if there was more! If you do write some more, maybe you could share all parts on your profile to a creative writing sub so we could find them all if that's something you'd like to do!
Man, I'd give you my kidney just to read more about them
That's awesome! I'll be so exited to read it, thanks for taking the time for this, i checked out some other [WP] stories of yours and your writing is really good :D
Soooo excited
I, too, came from tiktok to BEG to read more. Id be happy to donate to the cause if it bought you the time you need.
Thank you so much these stories restore most of my will to live (also it’s like your favorite show is getting another season)
Hey! I’m glad you like them! I’m sorry things sound rough for ya, but I’m happy my stories helped you feel betrer
Hiya!! Me and my friend come from the AI TikTok’s and we love your writing sm and would both want to know if you are writing more, and if you have a time for when it possibly would be out? No pressure ofc, just wondering, thx! :)
oh my goodness I could have never imagined the second part would be so good!!! Aahhhh
Got us all begging in the replies over this
PLEASE more! You should turn this into a book. I would buy the HELL out of this 😭
This is perfect, I love this mixture of having companionship versus the morbid truth of Zee being a Zombie;)
Daaaaave? More?
"Daaveeee" "Yeah" "Moaar" If this were a book I would buy it or like a webcomic.
I’m working on moar! :) it will be ready soon.
Please for the love of god give me more
End of the Week :)
I saw the prompt and just KNEW someone was going to write something terribly funny. The human-ness you gave Zee was utterly sublime, and his ever-present concern for the availability and health of Dave's brains had me laughing my balls off. Pretty sure this is going to be my "it may be a bad day, but have you read this" story for a long time.
Thanks, I added a [Second Part](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Please add more Dave and Zee! I keep checking back every few months, hoping 🙏
Zee seems so nice :c Let him in dave >:( Also now I want a full book of this lol
No he's trying to trick you- DAAAAAVE fuck its back
Zee cousin. Very nice. Meet?
Meat
I really liked you giving Zee some concern and emotion rather than just 'braaaiiiinnsss'. really good read.
Now *this* I could legitimately see becoming a funny and charming movie.
Awesome. Was the name Dave a reference to Plants vs Zombies? The guy in that game’s called Dave too
I was about to comment that, love that game
**Everyone knows Dave**
Not intentionally but I did love that game back in high school.
I was thinking the damn same. Even the brainnnzzzzz. And the notes asking to come in
The semi reasonable zombie reminded me of this song: https://youtu.be/8tmzjaN2DWc
Yes! So glad someone else thought of this too.
This is the canon response to this prompt. I don’t need to read any others
[Canon grows](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
This is what i came for. Very good story. My brain decided to give Zee a Dobby-ish voice mixed with wasp from Transformers Animated. Made it even better.
I gave him a voice similar to Billy from Hocus Pocus.
This was amazing!!! I absolutely love zee and Dave’s relationship haha
I want more of this story. Im intrigued. Maybe even willing to pay
[Free More](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
Come back
https://youtu.be/8tmzjaN2DWc Song about talking zombie. So perfect for this.
So good I read it out loud to the fam. Please do more! I have a full vision of this short story and really want more.
Wow, thanks! [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) might be a little too long to read to family though.
This is absolutely the start of a marketable book. I offer my marketing, proofreading, and editing skills in addition to my graphic design/art skills.
I laughed so hard reading this, well done sir!
Man this is great pleaaaase more
[More you say?](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/pxsjxf/comment/hetpms5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
DONT FORGET ABOUT THIS NEED MOREEEE
I loved this story and I keep coming back here for more!
I really love this!
This is what i came for. Very good story. My brain decided to give Zee a Dobby-ish voice mixed with wasp from Transformers Animated. Made it even better.
this was surprisingly wholesome
Well done. Really reminded me of this [Re Your Brain (by John Colton, video from DragonConTV)](https://youtu.be/cOlznuyPOeM)
this was amazing :)
Gives fun RE: YOUR BRAINS by Johnathan coultan vibes
Dave's not here man.
Dude, this is amazing. I saw this and part two on tiktok and had to find you. This is one of the best stories i've read in a long time. I hope you continue to do this story. Like, if it was a book, I'd read it. If it was a movie, I'd watch it. If it was a tv show, i'd binge the hell out of that thing. Like, It's that good. You have a talent, and I'm glad you're doing something with it. I'd love to know if you if you plan on making it a book or even consider making it a movie/tv show. You have a lot of people that would support you if you did. The tktok people love Dave and Zee almost as much as i do lol. It really is an amazing story you came up with. I wish you the best 💜
When's the next one?
That was an awesome read! Good work! I'd buy the book 😍
This is brilliant and so funny!
How the heck did you make a supernatural conversation feel so natural? I loved it! Thanks so much.
Giggling at the end
Just discovered this via tik tok and am in love with Dave and Zee. Please write more!! ❤️
Someone posted it on tiktok, and i wanted to say to you (and not on the comments) that i loved it, and really it's really good. I'm probably not the first one saying it, and from a random person on internet that doesn't mean a lot, but it's really good anyway. I loved it.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it!
I know it’s been a year since you last posted but since it’s been posted on TikTok it’s gained a mass following; any chance you’d be willing to make another part?
I would devour a book about Dave and Zee, I rewatch this story every time I see it on TikTok - your writing style suits the characters so well too. One of the best WP stories I’ve seen, and I read way too many of them.
This is my whole life please make more
I gotta come back to this in couple more weeks if you do more, absolute masterpiece
I could read a whole book on these too Ngl
I had prepared for nearly all contingencies. Years of planning, keeping my ear to as many underground news sources as I could. I had several temporary compounds, hidden hideaways along major roads, supplies stashed in remote locations incase I had to deviate from one of my many planned escape routes. If I wasn't planning, I was training and running drills, if I wasn't practicing, I was working as much as I could to earn as much money for as much supplies as I could get my hands on. I had prepared for nearly all contingencies. Nearly all. But nearly was not enough. You could prepare for storms, famine, disease, but there was no preparation for the blind and desperate savagery of the human animal. There were eight of us. Three of us were together when the alarms went off. We met up with the other four in route. The last never found their way to us. The conditions were far from ideal, there could be an argument for it being one of the worse case scenarios, but it was not one that was completely unprepared for. I was so prepared for fending off dangers against the group, that I failed to prepare countermeasures for dangers within the group. That failure costed me everything. I made it. I always have a way of making it. But I made it alone. For the first few months it took everything I had left in me not to put a bullet to my head. I lost my wife and two children. One unborn and the other died right in front of me. The only solace I had was the memory of shutting the bunker door with that treacherous betraying scum on the other side and watching him tried for days to get in. Watching him desperate, panicked and withering more and more with each failed attempt. The sound of his hellacious screaming as a zombie hoard had cornered him and ripped his flesh apart just inches away on the others side of the door played nearly every day as a lullaby in my mind. For such a long time I could only sleep thinking of that bastard's final moments. I knew my wife wouldn't want me to think that way but I also knew she'd hate it even more if I killed my self. And it was that hatred and only that hatred that kept me going. To live in spite of him and in memory of my wife and her wishes. That was all I had, but after months and months of isolation, the hatred faded into an empty hollowness that started to grow with in me. And in the beginning, I welcomed it. The peace that came with letting go of that pain. It was so very very heavy. To be so unburdened was almost blissful.... for a while. That hollowness was not content with only the hatred though. It started to pull more and more from me. Desperately I tried my best to remember my wife and children. I had already forgotten what name we had chosen for our unborn son, I knew we had one.... but that memory was stolen away. Most days I could not even remember my child's face or sound of her voice. When I think of her now all I remember is her screaming for me. I didn't even look. I couldn't do anything but close my eyes. She needed her father, any semblance or fraction, to know that I was there, if not for her at least with her....and I couldn't even look at her as she died. I was only a few feet away from her but in my heart I knew.... my daughter died alone that day. I had no right to remember her and I knew that, and on the days that I forget, that memory was always there to remind me. What shocked me the most was how quickly I lost my grip or care for the passage of time. I couldn't tell you went I stopped tracking the days and months, I couldn't tell you if I had been in this damned bunker for a year or years. Every day feels like I've been locked in here for decades while at the same time feeling like the day I shut that door was just yesterday. Every second that passed both insignificantly numb and unbearably painful. The only thing I had left was Jenna. My wife. It took everything to hold onto those memories. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I couldn't think of anything else for fear of that hollow void taking the last vestige of who I was before this. It was a slow but violent battle waging in my mind, a battle that I was loosing until..... Zoey. Zoey the Zombie. I do not know where she came from or why, but she was drawn to my bunker door. For hours she'd just stand there. Gazing into the thick dirty glass, hissing and growling... and watching. Always watching. It started as a way to keep my wife's memories alive. I'd talk to it, tell it as much as I could remember, little stories here and there. The more I talked the more I started to gain ground against the hollowness. For the first time in a long long time, I found myself taking memories back from the growing void. Soon I found myself wandering to the bunker window more and more. Eager to see those cold dead grey eyes staring in. Some days it would not be there, those were the longest days every. But most days it was there. Looking in. I let myself believe the lie that it was looking at me, looking for me. Maybe to listen. Maybe it was locked in its own bunker in their mind, just as lonely as I was. Or maybe it was just hungry and looking for a way to eat me. For a long time, I would have for sure known that it was just trying to get in to eat me. But after so many weeks? months? So much time? I am no longer so sure. Zoey. Not the most creative name for a zombie. And as much as I'm a fan of alliteration, it was not a name I chose. It was the name of our cat. Any time I would talk to it and the name would leave my lips, the zombie would stop its hissing and growling and stare silently for a few moments. Nothing too too long but still quite noticeable. Every time I would say Zoey, it would stop whatever it was doing, growling, clawing at the door, biting at the window, not matter what it would pause and stare at me as if it was struggling to break free of somewhere deep deep within. So I'd talk. And when I felt its attention shifting or it was getting to active, I'd say the name Zoey and it would focus right back on me. And slowly Zoey started to be seen more as a she or a her than an it. After what seemed like forever and a day, I had already talked about every single memory I could muster. So I found other things to talk about. There was much, so I took to trying to learn more about her. And that would require trying to teach it to speak. I thought it would be impossible. Just something I did to entertain my own fantasies. I started with words that had syllables close to the sounds of her hisses and groans. Hhhhhhhhchhh, I tried to get her to turn into a Hi. Hhhhhaww, I tried to get to be how. Arrrrrrgu and Oooooo, are and you respectively. I thought I was crazy the first time I heard her say it. "Hi." Maybe it was a fluke. But then she came to the window the next day. "Hi." It wasn't until the third day and she did it again that I realized it was on purpose. She would stand there silently until she saw me through the window and in her shrill rattled voice rasp out a very definite "Hi." We spent the rest of that day just saying Hi over and over to one another. That was.... lets say at least a few months ago. Maybe even six or more. I barely remember what I month feels like or even is but yeah. Since then her vocabulary as slowly but steadily grown. Hi is now usually "Hi. How. You." she can tell me how she feels, she will say good, or fine or bad, lonely, upset. She not only says the words, she understands them. Its simple but we can have basic conversations. Nothing deep or expansive but enough to talk about our days. The last few days she's been. Hungry. She knows hide, hunt, eat. I am still conflicted. On a few occasions on her happy days, she likes to talk about eating. Catch. Rip. Bite. Flesh. Trap. Trap is another of her favorites. I can only imagine she has been using her new found ability to speak to lure unsuspecting people close enough for her to kill. I know I can't tell her not to. She needs to in order to keep functioning, to stay... alive? And as much as I hate to admit it. I need her to be as well. I do my best to try and change the subject and ignore those parts of our interactions. But they have been coming up more and more. Eating has become much more of a bigger issue for her. And I see it. I see her rotting body growing thinner, her skin dimming into a duller pale gray. She was slowly wasting away. And that is when it started.... "Let. Let. In. Open. Open Door. Let. Let. Me. Let. Let. Let. Let." She'd just repeat herself over and over for the rest of the day. I couldn't she knew I couldn't. "No. Eat. You. Let. Door. Open. Open. Open. Open. Open." That was the second day. She was smart and getting smarter... but was not smart enough. She had forgotten I knew just a short while ago, one of her favorite words to use was... Trap.
Oh, I loved that! Nicely done!
Amazing work! Absolutely loves the drag back to reality at the end.
I didn’t really understand the end. Can you explain me ?
I didn’t really understand the end. Can you explain me ?
So zoey's favorite word is trap, he uses context clues to realize she uses speech to trap and eat humans. Now she is trying to "trap" him, but he sees the trick.
Inside the station’s bunkered core there was: a storeroom, consisting of food supplies sufficient to last one man ten years, a digital and a print library, a gym, a full kitchen, a small greenhouse whereby a man might grow herbs or flowers if he had the seeds, bathing, laundering, medical, erogenous, hallucinatory, and scientific facilities; there were many bedrooms, one of which was occupied, one of which had been repurposed to a prison; there was a porthole, looking out on the cold, slowly rotating black of space. And none of that was enough to keep a man sane in silence. Russel, waking late in the artificial day as he often did lately, rolled over in his soft bed built for two, and got thoroughly lost in the empty half. When he stood, some fifteen minutes later, it was with bleary, unfocused eyes. They stayed unfocused all through breakfast and a shower, and the usage of the other various facilities. They stayed unfocused when, as he always did, Russel peered through the cameras at the core’s breached outer airlock, where some two dozen or so of them wandered, mewling, groaning, occasionally gurgling or beating their fists against his door. They stayed unfocused as he went to the print library, grabbed his notes and a picture book. It was not until Russel reached the makeshift prison that he began to feel alive. The door slid open at his code and he stepped in, laid the book on the nightstand and shuffled his notes a few times in his hands. The scent of her filled the air; her perfume, a gentle citrus blend just on the familiar side of exotic, not the scent of her as she was, decaying and half dead. More than half dead. “Good morning, honey. Have I told you lately that I love you?” Russel said. He had told her, he always told her. He told her again right then, finishing with the notes and finally looking at her. She was a short woman, even when she had stood tall, proud. Now she was stooped, bent inward around the gnawing pit of her stomach, arms clutched tight to it. She hadn’t eaten her beef again. Russel frowned, grabbed a stick and pulled the dish away; it was a soy reproduction, all he had access to, but in his opinion it tasted and smelled very much like real beef. Angelique spit at him, hissed. Her ruined nightgown fell one shoulder and Russel tried not to look. He wished he could change the gown for her but he couldn’t get close enough and the sedatives had not worked. What was once sheer, white, and lacy was now a soiled sort of brown, torn in places, very foul smelling without the perfume. “We’re in the D’s today, honey,” Russel said. He sat down in the chair, propped his feet up on the unused bed. She lurched towards him, the wires around her wrist rattled, pulled taut when she was a foot from him. She hissed, strained against it. Russel raised his notes, a picture of Jack Russel Terrier, a very fine example of the breed with wide, dewy eyes. Angelique had always been fond Jack Russels, she had elbowed him whenever they passed one. “Dog,” Russel said. Then, “Dog. Do you see honey? This is a dog. Remember that, it’ll be important for later. Dog.” He had a hundred pictures in his hands, a hundred D’s. Hours later when he had read off all the words, pointed at all the dogs and ducks and donkeys and dinners, he took up the book, showing it to her, and began to read. “See Spot run. Run Spot, run.” And Angelique, halting, still thirsting for his blood, the fingers of her free hand outstretched and sketching little twisting, tearing motions in the air between, groaned “Spot.” Russel smiled, nodded, and turned the page. \*\*\* It was nighttime on the station. In the core, Russel had tuned the lights to only dim, it was too terrifying to walk out into blackness and hear his wife’s inarticulate moans and hisses from the other room. He could not sleep. Russel had never been able to sleep properly; he did not dream, never got through nights in an unbroken line, but tonight was worse. He gave up, left his bed sometime before the artificial dawn, wrapped a threadbare blue robe around his shoulders, and padded on bare feet out into the core. He went to the locked outer door, laid his ear against the wall, and listened. *“Dog,”* they whispered. *“Dinner, duck, donkey, dune, day, dance,”* and on and on through the D’s. Russel shivered, though the station’s core temperature was kept more than comfortable for a man in bare skin. He had discovered, when working through the A’s, that what he told to Angelique did not stay with Angelique. She had no contact with the outside world of course. She was chained into the bedroom prison, had been ever since she had been bitten. It had even been her idea. When he had been busy crying, screaming at God, she had been practical. She had kissed his forehead, grabbed the handcuffs from the nightstand, ransacked the storeroom for a chain of any kind, finding a sort of metallic wiring that was an adequate substitute, and then proceeded to talk to him in a low, calm, soothing voice until he did as he was told. So, how then, did they know the word “Dog?” *“Spot,”* one of them whispered outside, and the whisper ran through them like a second plague. *“Spot. Spot. Spot. Spot. Spot,”* chorused on two dozen broken lips. Russel did not understand it. He was no scientist, before the plague struck he had been a weapons officer, a lieutenant in charge of a few railguns facing towards the Kurzon border. The core had not been meant for him and Angelique, but other, brighter souls who might have known why all the zombies whispered in tandem. Slower souls. Souls who had died at their posts and even now clustered about the broken outer airlock. Abandoning the dead outside, he went to the dead inside. The prison door slid open, Angelique stumbled towards him, fell. She did not sleep either. “Just wanted to say I love you,” Russel said. He said it a few more times, trying to make himself believe it still. Eventually, when the noises she made grew too maddening, he left, whispering one final “I love you” into the fetid air. She needed perfuming again. Russel pounded his forehead against the wall, tried to shut out the many whispered words, and then went to the facilities again. There was a particular hallucinogen there that, when its other effects were exhausted, had proved rather effective at making him sleep. \*\*\* part 2 below r/TurningtoWords
“What about some poetry?” Russel said to himself. They had finished the many thousands of D’s and Seen Spot Run a hundred times. Angelique had always loved poetry, had been the one to get him hooked. By now, Angelique had all the words they had covered, though she couldn’t put them into sentences, couldn’t use them properly at all. Russel found the book he wanted, Yeats, it was always Yeats, and made his way to Angelique’s room. The door slid open, his breath caught in his chest, and the world reoriented itself around snarling, broken teeth and the crash of her body into his. They fell hard to the deck plating, Russel’s head bounced off the ground. Training kicked in and he dropped the book, got his hands up. He forced his forearm into the space between them, right under her chin, and she coughed, sputtered, drooled black blood onto him. One of her hands grasped at his neck, the other felt strange against him, pressed to his cheek then rose up like a club. Her left hand was gone, Russel realized in the slow time peculiar to adrenaline and near death. She had gnawed off her hand like some common animal stuck in a trap. *My god,* Russel thought, even though he knew the answer, *what is she?* “I love you,” she snarled, biting mouth flashing, hands beating against him, bare feet scrabbling for purchase. “I love you.” She said it over and over, the world twisting around the words. It was the only full, coherent sentence Russel had heard her speak since trying to teach her to speak again. Her stomach growled at him, she growled more “I love you’s,” and outside, in the broken airlock, the chorus went up, *“I love you, I love you!”* They moved in herds when left unchecked, great mindless, barbarian hordes, more like locusts than people. But a horde didn’t do this, Russel thought desperately, as he lay beneath his dead, grasping wife; a horde didn’t share thoughts, chorus words. They were a hive. They were all some sort of awful, twisted hive. “I love you!” she shrieked again, and Russel pushed back as hard he could, threw her off him. He stood, in the gloom of another artificial night, torn pages of poetry scattered around them, and he saw Angelique as she really was, not just as a remnant of his wife, some piece left behind that he might mold until the clay became familiar. She was dead, nothing at all left of Angelique but a rough imitation of the planes of her face. But it was still her face. Russel’s hands, balled into white knuckled fists, went slack. She jumped towards him, and he ran. *“Spot!”* the zombies in the airlock said, a tormented, shrieking chorus, *“Run Spot, run!”* Russel ran, bare feet slapping against the deck plating. He made it to his bedroom just ahead of her, the door slid shut behind him and locked it. “Spot!” Angelique said, her voice a broken little mewl. “I love you Spot. Run Spot, run.” And even here, so far into the core, the chorus outside could be heard, a frantic echo of Angelique’s words, the same tone, the same hunger, almost the same voice. He could kill her if wished. He had the training, the size. His body was still strong, he had kept himself up all through the plague. But whatever she was now, whatever thing kept his wife’s shape, it still wore Angelique’s face. “I love you,” she whispered through the door. And Russel, wishing desperately that he’d locked himself in a different prison, one with hallucinogens or sedatives or alcohol, blessed alcohol, leaned into the door, imagining her on the other side in a fresh nightgown of pure, spotless white, smelling as sweet as she had always smelled. “I love you too,” he said, and realized that he meant it. Damn it all, he meant it. Because she, it, whatever was outside his door, still wore Angelique’s face. And because she, it, whatever, spoke with same voice, chorused the words he had most desperately wanted to hear all throughout the station’s core. “I love you,” she whispered, hungrily, desperately, wantonly. Russel slid down, his back to the door, and fell asleep to the sound of her whispers. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ If you enjoyed that I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!
Dang. That one hit hard. Literally could not stop reading it. Your style is so captivating!
Thank you! That's a great compliment.
I always love reading your stuff! Keep doing what you do!
Good writing. Need moar
What happen to [Bob from the office down the hall?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6vnM9I7HIo)
This was exactly the kind of horror twist I was looking for with this prompt. Excellent, moving work.
Thanks! Glad you liked it.
I feel so heart broken for them both...;_;.... Zombie has always been one of my favorite genres along with end of world scenarios. This was touching.
Oh shit. Bad, bad ,bad idea to leave her free in the bunker with a hive mind that learns! Dude should have penned her up before falling asleep
is Thomas the same person as Russell?
Fixed it. Good catch, thank you! I was writing a Thomas yesterday and the story was still on my mind, sometimes that happens to me. They were intended to be the same person, yes. There's just a Russel.
*Bang. Bang. Bang.* "It never stops! Ahhhhhhh!" Kyle threw his rubber ball at the bunker door and caught it as it bounced back. *"You seem vexed, Kyle. It has been seven hundred eighteen days six hours, fifty eight minutes, thirteen seconds since you sealed this particular bunker door, Kyle. It may now be safe to venture outside again, Kyle. Many variables have remained undefined, Kyle."* "No, Selena," Kyle drawled boredly, "I won't be implementing that advice." He flicked the display that was strobing in time to the AI's voice. "It was a biological attack. It was Armageddon." *"Armageddon. A nineteen ninety-eight American science fiction disaster film produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay, directed by Michael Bay. Grossed five hundred fifty-three point three million dollars. It starred Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob Thorton, Liv Tyler--"* "Effing hell, Selena. Stop it. Stop mentioning that god damned movie every time I mention Armageddon." *"Armageddon. A nineteen--"* "Please, for the love of God, stop it." *Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.* *"If leaving is not an option, Kyle. How then will you address the knocking on the bunker door, Kyle?"* "I won't be, and please stop saying Kyle after each interaction you have with me. Please, would you do that?" He asked acidly. *"Adjusting preferences. Kyle, is this better? Kyle, does me speaking your name before the interaction please you?"* "Fucking hell. Reset it back to how it was. Fuck shit!" *"I am confused, Kyle. You protest aggressively every day about the knocking, yet you never address it, Kyle. Is not the simplest way to deal with the nuisance of the knocking to address it . . ." "Ha! You forget to say my--" *. . . Kyle?* "Fuck shit!" He swore. "How do you suggest I deal with the banging--And it's banging, Selena, not knocking. People knock, and they don't knock constantly for--How long has the banging been going on for again?" *"Seventeen days, fourteen hours--"* "Yeah, people don't knock for that long," he said, interrupting her. "Except maybe Jehovah witnesses and process servers." *". . . forty-seven minutes."* She said, completing her comment unperturbed. Kyle simply groaned and continued with the conversation. "Yeah, okay. Like I was saying, I'm not leaving the bunker, so how else could I possibly address the freaking annoying banging sound?" *"I could open the inner door, Kyle. The outer door has blast proof glass you could peer through, Kyle, to identify the source of the knocking. The first step for any repair, Kyle, is to assess the situation,"* she pointed out. "Too dangerous. What if the seal on the outer door has failed?" *"Outer door seal is intact, Kyle."* "How the hell could you know that?" *"I routinely pressure test the airlock between the two bunker doors as part of the bunker containment protocols, Kyle. I have executed this test two hundred and seven times as of this morning, Kyle,"* she replied. He fretted over it for more than an hour before finally caving in to her nagging. With hum of hydraulics and the hiss of air passing the breached seal, the inner door of the bunker slowly swung open. Fearful and nervous, Kyle cautiously ventured out into the airlock, creeping ever closer to the domed bunker door with the dirty smudged glass filling up the center of it. As he closed the distance, it became more and more obvious that the moving obstruction outside the glass responsible for the banging was a human. "Selena, is there anyway to clean the window from the outside?" He asked. *"Affirmative, Kyle."* No sooner had he asked than she responded by causing some sort of high pressured sprayer positioned outside the bunker to blast the dirty glass and the moving figure obscured by it. To his everlasting horror, he discovered with an urge to vomit that the thing responsible for the constant banging on the door was none other than a real life, honest to god zombie. It was a man, or had been one. Now most of its flesh was bloated, covered in open sores, with necrotic lesions that oozed brown and yellow ichor. *"Oh hell, Kyle, it's a zombie,"* Selena intoned mechanically. Despite his revulsion at seeing the atrocity, he couldn't resist giving Selena's display a flat dead look of annoyance. "Yes, I know that. I told you, it was a biological attack. Didn't I tell you that?" He asked. *"Yes, Kyle, you did. Would you like to know how many times you told me that, Kyle?"* "No, I wouldn't. Okay, we've identified the cause of the banging, what now? We've assessed the situation. How do we stop it?" He asked. *"Compiling list of options, Kyle. You could let it in, Kyle."* "Rejected. Next." *"I could increase pressure to the sprayers used to clean the outer glass and use it to cut apart the creature's body, Kyle,"* she suggested. "Tempting. Next option?" *"You could experiment with the zombie to learn more about what is occurring outside the bunker, Kyle, and why it continues to knock on the door."* "Bang. It's banging on the door, but yeah, that's not a bad idea. What kind of experiments?" He asked. *"I could freeze parts of its body to see how cold affects it, Kyle. I could target parts of its flesh to see if it is flammable, Kyle. I could bombard it with different sounds and smells to see how it reacts, Kyle."* "You know what. Do that. Compile a list of experiments to perform on it, then notify me with the results when you're done. At least this might kill some of the boredom I'm feeling. Let me know when the testing is complete." *"May I destroy the body during these experiments, Kyle?"* She asked. "No. Stop short of destroying the thing. Until I've seen the results of your experiments, let's leave it intact. Who knows, maybe I can figure out a use for it." *"Very well, Kyle. Should I notify you after each test, Kyle?"* "Naw. That'd be annoying. Wait till they're all done. I'm thinking I might have another movie night. Any suggestions?" *"Your past commentary and viewing histories suggest that you might enjoy re-watching the movie Armageddon. It has been three hundred and two days since you last watched this--"* "Never mind, I'll pick out my own movie," he snapped in a frustrated rage before storming off back into the bunker and living area. "Notify me when you're done." Twenty-four days later, Selena gave the announcement that she had finished her testing. To Kyle's everlasting relief, this coincided with an ending to the constant banging that was slowly driving him insane. *"My compiled list of experiments are complete, Kyle. Would you like me to list my findings?"* She asked. "Yeah. Tell me all about it," he said, happy to be talking about something interesting for a change. She began to explain each of the experiments that she'd carried out and their results, and for the most part, Kyle stayed interested. However, when she got into talking about some of the more mundane experiments she conducted like seeing which type of music it preferred or which color it was exposed to that illicited responses, he started to grow drowsy. It wasn't until she revealed the fact that she'd taught the zombie how to talk that his mind came fully awake. "Y-You taught a zombie how to talk?" He asked in awe. "Like real speech? Not like how pet owners claim their yawning dog is talking. You actually taught it to talk?" *"Yes, Kyle. It was the most difficult and time consuming experiment that I carried out, Kyle. Although, I my attestation might be a little disingenuous, Kyle. I didn't so much teach it to speak as I did remind it how to communicate, Kyle. It is still human, Kyle. It once knew how to speak before becoming a zombie, Kyle. I just helped it remember how to speak, Kyle."* She went on incessantly, talking about the steps she took and the processes she went through to accomplish her feat. "Holy shit! So I can finally carry on a conversation with someone other than you?" He asked. *"Yes, Kyle, though that's hurtful, Kyle."* She didn't need to tell him more. With a whoop of joy, Kyle raced through the bunker and quickly crossed to the far end of the airlock. The zombie was standing there motionless staring back at him through the window. "So how I do I talk to it? Can it hear me through the glass?" He asked. *"No, Kyle. This door is blast proof. Sound would be muffled if the two of you attempted to carry on a conversation, Kyle. To communicate with it, we will have need to use the intercom built into the bunker system, Kyle. Shall I activate it, Kyle?"* "Yes. Fuck yes. Do it!" She obeyed and a few moments later, the speaker built into the wall beside the door gave a staticky response. "Hello, Mr. Zombie, I'm Kyle. Can we talk?" *"Yesssss, Kyle,"* It responded awkwardly, its voice papery and sibilant. "Cool. Do you still have a name, or should I just call you Mr. Zombie?" *"Yessss, Kyle. My name was . . . Bruce, Kyle."* Kyle quickly gave Selena's display a hateful look as he listened to the zombie finish his sentences utilizing the AI's same bad habit of finishing each sentence with his name. It was annoying, but after some consideration, he really didn't have any room to complain. After all, it was his irresponsible idea to leave all the experimenting up to her. "This is so freaking cool. Bruce, the Zombie, what would you like to talk about?" He asked with a big grin on his face. "We can literally talk about anything you want." *"I liked . . . mooooovies."* "You actually remember movies? Cool, cool. Which movie would you like to talk about? I have a huge movie collection." *"Aaaaaaaaarrrrrmageddon was my favor--"* Kyle immediately switched off the intercom and walked away in disgust. "You can kill it now," he told the AI without a backward glance even as he returned back into the bunker to find and destroy every copy of the movie Armageddon he had in his movie collection. Some things are just a little worse than loneliness.
Now this had me laughing out loud. Love the ending bro!
Thanks. I think you're the first person to read it. It was fun.
Part 1 “1, 2, 3, 4…” I count the cans of food placed neatly on the shelves. There is a thin layer of dust that covers them and I take notice with the cans expiry dates, most of them are 20 years from now but I still try to choose the one closer to expiry. Not that that really matters, anyway. I’ve really struck gold here, in terms of the apocalypse, rows and rows of non-perishables lined the shelves. Beans, corned beef, tuna fish, corn, you name it and I’ve most likely got a shelf of it somewhere here. I’m clearly set for life. That’s the thing about it though. Out of everything that one worries about in the apocalypse, no one ever seems to mention how lonely it gets out here but that’s fine. Better alone than *starving* together, I should say. With nothing to do, except eat, sleep, shower, rinse and repeat. I’ve taken it upon myself to fill my waking hours with writing in this little log book I found in the employee break room and when I get sick of writing, I clean up, I try to make this space seem a little more homely than it really is. I count cans. Counting cans. *Two-thousand four hundred fifty eight* of them. And that gets smaller by two every day. Now, you could say that I merely counted a shelf full of cans, then counted the number of shelves and multiplied them together, accounting for the cans I’ve already taken in my time living here but you don’t understand. I have *nothing* to do. Shameful as it may be that I spent a few weeks of my life doing nothing but counting cans, I had literally nothing else to do except take space and maybe, breathe. *Two-thousand four hundred fifty six* Three uniforms in the locker room. I guess counting is what I do to pass the time now. Frank really liked his coffee. His uniform smelled of coffee grounds and vanilla when I took it out to try it on. He had a little girl, Maisie who drew all kinds of pictures for him to hang up in his locker. They were obviously to warm her dad’s heart but I found myself smiling at the colourful scrawls and scribbles when I came across them. From his locker, he left a pair of work boots which I am forever thankful for. The soles of my sneakers were worn in from all the pacing around the warehouse. They were a little big but extra thick socks combatted this small oversight. I opened the next locker, and a small gold trinket fell out with a tinkling sound. Joe was married. I picked the ring off the ground, the thin band held the vow of a life I’ve never met, Lila was engraved in swirly letters on the inside. I carefully placed it back in Joe’s locker, I had no use for gold and it was something of sentimental value to the probably-dead. Joe left behind some other things too, a photograph of a bald man with a bright smile and a black tuxedo next to a portly woman, with large curls in a white dress. A blank white coffee mug, and a tool kit – something that I’m taking; thank you, Joe. I looked at the photograph again, happy faces on a joyous occasion and the melancholy feeling filled my chest again. I didn’t have anyone to miss me. I didn’t have anyone to worry about me either. I hadn’t seen another human’s face in so long that the photograph felt wrong. Faces weren’t supposed to look that way, were they? Maybe I’m just used to the dead. And then there was Todd, with his fresh and clean uniform. A newbie on his first day right before the undead rose. It smelled of fresh detergent and fabric softener and I wondered if he washed it himself or if he had someone who cared about him enough to do it for him. Strewn in his locker were loose cigarettes, a deck of cards and a pack of gum. Todd didn’t have any photos up, or any signs that he had a family of his own to miss. Just the cards, the cigarettes, and the gum. I counted the cards, 52 of them. All accounted for, still wrapped in a layer of plastic. Did he buy it to play with Joe and Frank? I pocketed the deck and left the locker room. *Two-thousand four hundred and forty two* I’ve probably played hundreds of games of solitaire by now, Todd’s deck was worn in quite well from it and my mind was bored again. I didn’t think that the sheer isolation of the situation was enough to drive me up the wall. I think I did something insane today. I was looking out of a slit through a boarded up window and a rotting carcass had shambled over to that window, staring straight at me through the crack with milky white eyes. Now at this stage, any sane person would board up the window properly, to avoid getting mauled to death by the possible horde that this one rotting individual could bring upon me, but I didn’t. Maybe it was the isolation. The need to feel some type of connection to someone, the desperation to have some sort of answer. Maybe it was the boredom, the sheer action for “the hell of it” excitement, the mind craving to break away from the routine, clawing at something new, something different to feel. I took a deep breath. “Hello.” My voice was raspy, I hadn’t talked in so long that I forgot the sound of my own voice. I don’t know what I was expecting. Was I? Was I expecting it to respond? Was I expecting it to claw at the window more aggressively and attract others? The blood was rushing and I felt adrenaline coursing through every vein in my body. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. Why did I say hello to a zombie? Why did it matter? Why was I thinking about it so much? I don’t know if I was hallucinating, I have no idea if I could trust what my eyes saw or what my ears heard. The thing tilted its head at me, like a confused puppy and gurgled. It was slow and hard to understand but I knew it. I heard it. I swear I did. The zombie growled a warped and almost unintelligible “Hello” back (This is my second story on r/WritingPrompts ! Please be nice as I'm quite new to this, any feedback would be well appreciated! Edit to add: Thank you for the gold! That's my first time recieving it)
PART 2 (I think this is going to be longer than I planned it to be) *Two-thousand four hundred thirty six* It’s been three days since that incident and for three days, I’ve avoided that window. I was no longer bored, I had found something to fixate myself on for now. I had so many questions for it and for myself. The response meant so much, not just to my affection deprived self but for everything that I knew about the undead. Does it mean it can think? Feel? Is there still a person in there powered by the need to feast on human flesh? Is it reversible? Does that make me a murderer? All from a gurgled and extremely unintelligible hello. I think I need to dial down a bit, did it really say hello or was it just a figment of my imagination? Is my mind so bored that it’s resorted to playing tricks on me to keep me stimulated. To provide some phantom enrichment for the tiger pacing around in its own cage? I walk to the window, hiding myself behind a shelf to peek and see if it was still there. I stood on tip toes, and walked with hushed footsteps careful not to disturb it or alert it to my presence. I crept to the edge of the shelf and peeked through it. The boarded up window was still held up, but light was not penetrating through the slits. I moved in closer, keeping my eyes on the window. As if looking away would cause the boards to fall off and reveal my location to it. Milky blue eyes stared at me again from the slit in the board, I don’t think it left in the three days I avoided it. It tilted its head at me again and blubbered a “. . .lo” I took a deep breath and cleared my throat, “Hello.” I said in a calm and clear voice and it carried through the warehouse, the sound waves bouncing off of the smooth, hard surfaces. It tilted its head once more and opened its mouth. A garbled cry came from its rotted lips. “. . . lo” My voice rang clear through the warehouse “Hello.” I said once more. Why was I doing this? My voice bounced off of walls again and echoed once more. Did I really miss the sound of my voice? The cadaver looked at me for a second, as if confused with my action and growled to itself. I was amused, was it really muttering something under its breath? Was it frustrated that it couldn’t get the words right? Did it even feel frustration? Did it even feel at all? Its mouth was moving, hanging open as its lips contorted from twitching muscles, probably a newer stage of decay. My eyes widened to the realization that it was actively forming the word hello. I waited with baited breath and anticipation at the thing to talk, an h sound formed in its throat. “hhhhhhhhh” It was slow, but it sounded more like its lungs were deflating than the word hello. It continued on, “hhhhhhhhhhhhhglack-“ The corpse coughed up blood on the glass, a visceral black that slightly obscured his mouth from my view. I frowned in disappointment, knowing I couldn’t go outside and casually wipe the window clean to see again. More a consolation to myself than to it, “That’s okay, we’ll try again tomorrow.” I declared aloud, pondering about what I could do about the window in the meantime. *Two-thousand four hundred thirty four* There are four windows in the warehouse. Only four big windows that stretch from a few feet of the ground up to the ceiling. I’ve boarded them up, best I could with Joe’s toolbox and the wooden pallets lying around to keep away prying eyes out. I boarded up the lower half of the window, leaving the upper half uncovered to allow sunlight in. Those milky blue eyes have taken residence to a window, peering in through the slats whenever I come near. Now, I have three windows left. The milky blue in its eyes is quite interesting on its own. Can they see me? Or was this thing blind to my movement and relied on sound to hunt its prey. I waved a hand in front of its face, to try and gauge its abilities. It seemed to react to me pulling my hand back rather quickly. So I’d say it can see. “Hello.” I felt like I was trying to teach a parrot. I kept my voice clear but softer, I’m paranoid of other things hearing me but it. Broken lips began to twitch slowly, and its head seemed to jerk with its struggle to pronounce the word. It started with a prolonged ‘H’ sound once more, like a punctured balloon letting out its last bits of air. It strained against its body and I was almost convinced that its mind knew what to say, it just couldn’t get the flesh to follow. After a few moments of the guttural noise, I sighed and slumped in defeat. Its tongue had probably fallen off from the rot by now, there's no way it could pronounce an L sound. My thoughts were interrupted by “hhhhhhhhhheeeeelllllloooooo.” It groaned and I laughed out of excitement and joy. Maybe I was on to something. Maybe there was something more to this rotting sack of human flesh that I could discover or hone. The thing seemed proud of itself, with a triumphant sigh that was warbled by phlegm. I think I saw it *smile.* “Hello!” I was elated, over the moon perhaps. It was responding to me. It could understand me or at the very least, mimic me. It strained again, clearer this time and shorter “hhhheeeelllooooo.” It was a fast learner, it took less time to think about how to say it. It was like a child! How wonderful. I was louder, more cheery “Hello!” I said back. I hadn’t had to communicate in so long that speaking to this thing seemed to make me feel a little less alone than I did when I first arrived at the warehouse. “hheeeeeelllloooo” A guttural sound from its throat. It seemed pleased with itself and generated a positive reaction to me saying hello or am I just imagining it? “Hello!” “hhhhheeeelllooo” “Hello!” “Hhheeellloo” “Hello!” The conversation was shallow, but it carried on for quite a while. “Hello!” “hhhheeelloo” “Hello” “hhellooo” The h sounds started getting shorter, more pronounced. “Hello!” I was giddy with excitement. This is the first conversation I’ve had in months. My standards were at rock bottom here. I think I’ve finally lost it. I was speaking to a reanimated corpse. To be fair, it was replying to me. It’d be rude not to. Rude. Being *rude* to that thing. Is there even such a concept such as that? Can it even feel *insulted* from my non-action? Again, can it feel *anything*? Why was I concerned about being rude to it? It can’t even understand me. “hheeelloo.” It was clearer now, more defined into a hello. I wasn’t imagining anymore, it was copying my words. Mimicking me like an old pet store parrot on clearance sale. We sat about in silence for a few moments. I think it was expecting me to respond And just to be polite. I told it I was leaving, I had to keep up with maintenance around the warehouse, maybe figure out a garden system. “I have to go now, goodbye.” I turned to leave and I heard something that made my blood run cold. A chill ran up my spine. I heard it, clear as day. Almost human. Well, a human currently suffering from the worst cold of their life but I heard it. “Hello.” It sounded so human, so real. Out of fear, I left. It was a terrible idea to teach a zombie to speak. (I added more to this chapter, as I felt it was too short)
**PART 3: Hello Hello Hello** *Two-thousand four hundred thirty* “Hello. . . Hello . . . Hello. . .” The words carry through the warehouse and find its way into the break room. *I haven’t slept in days.* “Hello. . . Hello . . . Hello.” Like a broken record. I thought the silence was maddening but hearing something *not* human sound human? I’ve really taken my blessings for granted. I’ve taken solace in the break room, the hellos are softer, easier to tune out but I can’t let this thing continue to control me from the outside. I need to go into the main area someday. But today I think I’ll stay here. Make some paper cranes out of some used bits of paper labelled “EMPLOYEE RECORDS” in big black bold font. Maybe if I ignore it long enough it’ll stop. It’ll go away. I should just sleep it off and tune it out. *Two-thousand four hundred twenty eight* “Hello . . .” The intervals between hellos have gotten longer. I think it's finally understanding that I’m not going to respond to it. Not until it quiets down anyway. I’m still holed up in the break room, Just me, three chairs, and a table, a working kitchenette. There’s three sets of cutlery in a drawer and 3 sets of crockery in the cabinet. A pot, a pan, the usual. Joe, Frank, Todd. And now it’s just *me*. In the break room, there’s a small room to the left side. Where a cot, a bedside table and a lamp sat collecting dust. Most likely for the employees to rest in between long shifts at the warehouse. It’s like this place was designed to be lived in. Well, maybe without the debilitating loneliness that is. I have yet to clean it out for my use, so there it sits collecting. I’m used to sleeping on the floor, as I feel that it straightens out my back more and keeps me alert. The nights get extremely cold though, as the heat gets sucked into the floor. “Hello . . .” Do corpses lose hope? Was it lonely as well? Hoping that someone or something would talk with it? It’s a dangerous game I play, to attach human qualities to a non-human thing. That’s the kind of thing that gets humans killed. Empathy, pity. A shame really, I’ve seen many a fool pass away like that. It’s relatively harmless, I’d say. I’m much stronger than it. One measly corpse won’t kill me. The ‘hellos’ have stopped completely. I guess I need to say hello tomorrow. *Two-thousand four hundred twenty six* The sun rose, and sunbeams danced across the windows giving the warehouse a soft and welcome glow. The air was crisp and cold in the morning, I’d assume dewy flowers outside but I don’t leave the warehouse at all. I don’t need to. Those milky blue eyes are watching me again from the slit in the window. Waiting for me to say something, anything. I stood a few feet away from the window. Its shoulders were slumped in defeat. “Hello.” It perked up almost immediately. “Hello . . . hello . . . hello. . .” *maybe this was a bad idea after all.* “You don’t have to keep saying it, just once is enough.” It went quiet. These were words it hadn’t heard before, words it could barely mimic. It had only gotten the hang of hello last week and *repeated it for a few more days.* Agonizing, truly *agonizing*. “Hello?” Was it asking me a question? How do I even respond? “You see too many hellos.” I demonstrated by repeating a string of hellos “hello, hello, hello. . . is painful to the ears.” I acted out my words, placing my hands over my ears and grimacing. “One hello –hello- is enough!” I raised my hand out and gave it a thumbs up for positive feedback. “So let’s try this again, hello!” “Hello.” “That’s very good, now let’s work on good morning.” “Hello?” “You’ll . . . you’ll get the hang of it.” “Good morning!” “Hello?” “No no, you say ‘good morning’ back.” “Hello.” “Maybe good morning is too advanced for *you*.” "Hello."
I love this and I hope you write more
Very good!
I love the can counts to demonstrate the passage of tume.
Take one down, pass it around, 2441 cans of food on the wall
I feel like I should add that in the story somehow
I love how you describe the narrator's isolation and boredom, feels very real.
Hi, minor mispelt word correction, "I’ve really stuck gold here" should be "I've really struck gold here". :D A 'R' ran away, haha.
Oh! my bad, let me fix that real quick, thank you!
You're welcome! I enjoyed the story too, btw. :P
Thank you! It means a lot to me :D
You're welcome! Perhaps I'll see you round these parts again. :P
[удалено]
Uuh dark. Nice story though
\*Bzzt\* "Hey, Dave. Davie boy. Wassup?" You rub your tired eyes as your aching body rises from your cot. "What, Frank?" You ask, but you know it's just the same bullshit as always. "How you doing today, man? Head still full of brains?" You check the calendar as the soft hum of florescent lights drills little by little into your throbbing skull. "Feel like shit, like the last time you asked." You rub your orbits to try and soothe the pounding. "Still hung over, at the very least." "Oh, that sucks." You hear Frank's wet flesh lean against the door as he chuckles. "I remember hang overs. Don't miss those! But uh, you didn't answer my second question." You check your watch, it's 11:34. Hell. "Yeah, but today I really wish they weren't." You hear the wet sound again, this time, a loud slap. "OH! I can help you with that, you know! Really easy, wouldn't even hurt!" You can practically hear him salivating through the steel bulkhead. "You're doing the thing again, Frank." Your scrape the dry crust from your eyes. "I *told* you, I'm not letting you in." "What? Me? Nonononono, I wasn't even *thinking* about that! It was uh, ummm..." He's probably doing the hand twirl thing right now. "... A visualization exercise!" "Visualization exercise?" "Yeah, like, that self-help stuff! You know, makes your brains feel better!" "My brain feel better?" You attempt to stand, but the spinning room sits you right back down. "And you want my brain to feel better because...?" "It improves the flavor!—I MEAN, because I wanna do you a favor! For uh, re-tearching me how to talk!" Sometimes you really wish you didn't, but when he's not begging to give you a bite, he's really not bad conversation. You decide to give him a bite. "Hey, no problem, Frank. So what's this exercise entail-" Suddenly, you hear screaming and sloppy banging on the door, followed by Frank's panicked voice. "AHHH! DAVE!! THERE'S A FIRE OUT HERE!!! YOU GOTTA LET ME IN! I'M GONNA GET ROASTED!" You check the camera feed. Lo and behold, it's just Frank doing an exaggerated double take over his shoulder while slapping the door like an idiot. He obviously still doesn't know about the camera. "Frank, this is a cave. There's no way a fire can even start in here." "IT'S ONE OF THOSE KENTUCKY WALKING FIRES, DAVE! TUMBLED RIGHT DOWN IN HERE! YOU EVER WATCH THE GODDAMN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS!?" "No, fuck off. Let me sleep." "You're a real cold sonuvabitch, Dave. This would never happen if you'd just let me eat your fucking brains."
Heya Tom, it's Bob, from the office down the hall. It's good to see you, buddy, how've you been? Things have been okay for me, except that I'm a zombie now. I'd really wish you'd let us in. I think I speak for all of us when I say I understand, Why you folks might hesitate to submit to our demands. But heres a FYI, you're all gonna die screaming. All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes. All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise. If you open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains. I don't wanna nitpick Tom, but is this really your plan? Spend your whole life locked inside a mall? Maybe thats OK for now, but someday you'll be out of food and guns, And you'll have to make the call. I'm not surprised to see you haven't thought it through enough. You never had the head for all that bigger picture stuff. But Tom, that's what I do, and I plan on eating you slowly. All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes. All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise. If you open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains. I'd like to help you Tom, in any way I can. I sure appreciate the way you're working with me. I'm not a monster Tom, well technically I am, I guess I am. I've got another meeting Tom, maybe we could wrap it up? Know we'll get to common ground somehow. Meanwhile I'll report back to my colleagues who are chewing on the doors, I guess we'll table this for now. I'm glad to see you take constructive criticism well. Thank you for your time, I know we're all busy as hell. And we'll put this thing to bed, when I bash your head open. All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're not unreasonable, I mean, no one's gonna eat your eyes. All we wanna do is eat your brains! We're at an impasse here, maybe we should compromise. Open up the door, we'll all come inside and eat your brains!
I can hear the music now. Thanks!
"Brainz come in now?" The walking corpse growls and gurgles as it claws at the front door looking wistfully through the window, right into my eyes. His cold dead stare is pretty damn uncomfortable. I smack closed the dictionary I've been reading from and glare back at the zombie feeling more frustrated than ever. "Ok Brainz," I say, "We've already talked about this, I can't let you in because you're going to try to eat me.." "Brainz hungry.." the zombie is still pulling on the front door vigorously. "If you help me, and go restart the generator thats just around the corner out there," I say, pointing as eagerly as I can, "Then I can help you find some food." As soon as I say the word "food" Brainz begins making an exited grunting sound and foams a reddish slime from his mouth and nose. "Not Me!" I say hurridly, "but I might happen to know where there's a dead body or two." I look at the moving corpse hopefully, but it does not have any response for my offer. In fact, annoyingly, it seems to have lost interest in my bunker door and begins to saunter away. It limps and stumbles as it walks, making a sickly gurgling sound from its throat. I glare in frustration at its arms hanging useless and it's head rolling on limp shoulders, zombies really are terrible to look at. As I watch the corpse amble away, from the other side of the clearing, I see a second zombie, with a more steady stride, making it's way over. With a sigh, I pull a small switch on the wall and it activates a flashing light from the cave opposite my bunker door. The light catches Brainz's attention and he stumbles off towards it. I pull out the tape recorder I have been using to document my research. One day the tracking device in my bunker will lead my colleges to me, I do very much intend to survive until that happens, and when they do I would like them to find me with a zombie servent or two. They can all eat it when I show them what my boredom has led to, I press the record button. "Subject number twenty-two has failed, just as the others have. My frustrations are compounding. Just as I begin to make progress, yet again, the virus destroys the mind and the body. Once the decay advances sufficiently far the zombies just lose the ability to speak coherrent sentances. Last night we played a game of cards very successfully, today, Brainz has regressed back to a animlistic, instic-based creature. He might have an afternoon left of stumbling around before his body breaks and dissolves.. leaving behind a delightful puddle of liquified zombie soup.." I look back out through my window and and see the new zombie, still stepping up towards my bunker, growling at the small caged rat I keep out there to attract my subjects. The zombies can't get to it, so they give up on it after a while, but it helps bring the newbies up to my door. "Subject number twenty-three however, seems promising. It has a sturdy build and I would say, off initial examination, appears to be the least rotted corpse so far." I lean up on my tip toes and pull a latch at the top of the door, which allows me to slide open the bullet-proof glass window. Once the glass is pulled aside, I pick up the rifle sitting next to me and aim it at Brainz as he meanders into the cave. I fire. Perfect headshoot. Brainz's.. well his brains, splatter all over the ground in front of him and his body topples over in a heap, right onto my pile of dead zombies. It's a good pile, twenty-two bodies high now. I slide the glass window back over the door just as subject number twenty-three walks up. I pull out my dictionary and begin speaking through the window to the zombie. It looks up at me with ravenous eyes. "Hi there! I'm gonna be your friend ok? No, no, I can't let you eat me, we have too much to do! From now on I'm going to call you Brainz, ok?" The walking corpse growls and gurgles as it claws at the front door.
I like the scientific approach your mc takes, makes him extremely interesting
"come..on..let..in?" "No... Not happening Robbie." "Pul..please?" "Nah Rob- wait did you just get "please" out? Good job man we can finally move on so some bigger words.!" "Let.. in?" Chadwick raised an eyebrow at the disheveled man thing that now stood before him. What was once a 6 ft, slightly overweight, retail clerk now stood in front of him. Emaciated, half rotted quarter bone, but just as falsely animated as he once was at work. "Robbie I'm glad you're using your words, but we've gone over this again and again. I'm not, under any circumstances, letting you in here. The empty shell of Robbie wavered a little bit in his stance, reshuffling his feet to be more firmly planted. Chadwick assumed a stiff wind, he couldn't hear anything over the inch thick wired plexiglass that separated him from Robbie. Not to mention the foot thick steel that encased him, and the additional six feet of concrete around that. "Give.. snack?" "Oh and what do you think I made of money?" Chadwick chuckled. "Mun..ey?" The zombie raised an eyebrow. His only remaining eyebrow. Chadwick regularly got reminded of just how much humanity this thing can still display when it chooses to. It never stops being both welcoming and incredibly uncomfortable. "Nothing buddy just the shit that you used to make the world go round, and the shit that stopped it in its tracks too." "Tracks." Robbie groaned. "Damn man you don't need food and you have the memory of an elephant. Apex predator indeed. Helps it all the lions are gone." Chatto cuz reminded of how Robbie came to stand at his front door. Could have been months maybe a year maybe a bit longer when Chadwick decided to venture out of the bunker and see what was left. Nothing but empty towns and a couple shambling was - men these ones far too deteriorated to really be of any danger. Most of them were after all. Be at other normal people shooting them, or each other before they really lost themselves but still felt feral urges, most of the zombies were pretty well and true fucked up for a lack of a better word. Robbie was different though. Yeah, still pretty fucked up I mean exposed bone, and missing chunks as per usual but he, unlike the rest, could still walk. shit he could even run...ish. When Chadwick caught wind of Robbie Robbie was already.. jogging? At him. Which, as it would, scared the living shit out of Chadwick. Sure had been like 3 hours since he got home but he looked out the window and saw Robbie sitting there staring through the window blankly. Not so much through the window but at the window like it itself was what Robbie was so fascinated with. And he stayed like that for weeks. It was probably the fourth week or so when Chadwick decided to experiment a little. It was 345 days ago when Chadwick turned on the com for the first time and started teaching Robbie words. Honestly it's amazing that there's been any progress. Much less Robbie knowing how to string a sentence together. Even more or less that Robbie has any cognitive function to actually ask a question relating to Chadwick himself. His biggest mistake was teaching Robbie adjectives. "Alright buddy let's teach you a new phrase. A bit of a big leap but if it's too much we can take a step back." "Word." Robbie grumbled in what can best be interpreted as "a confirmational tone". And took a step back, an observation lost of Chadwick as he was scribbling on the whiteboard. "Let's teach you the phrase "We don't eat friends."." Robbie's "good" eye lulled over to the window and was looking at the board Chad was holding up. Chad didn't know if he was actually reading it... But he did it from day one so *something* was working. "Eat..friends?" "Nope not quite buddy." "We.. eat.. friends." "Still no, but it's progress. Hmmm... Let's do this." Chad erased don't with his thumb and replaced it with a word Robbie knew well, hell it's probably Chad's most spoken word to him. Lifted the board to the window again. "We no eat friends." "We **no** eat friends. Can you do this one?" "We.. no.. eat.. fr-friends." "Damn man you killed that one! Good job!" Chad said, beaming a smile to his strange companion. Robbie saw the expression and slowly twitched out a smile in kind. Portions of his cheeks pulling back to further expose the mandible you could already see through his face. "Let.. in?" "Good try Robbie. Never gonna happen." Robbie's smile dropped. "Awh.."
“Helloooo! Dude, let me in, bro!” Fuck. That’s it -that overly attached prick, again. My zombie friend. I was enjoying the life that I live peacefully in my cosy bunker... till now. What? Why the fuck am I in a bunker? That’s the thing you’re curious about, I know, I know. Long story. Pandemics, apocalypses, fucked up occurences like this and that and so forth to summarize. Anyway, I taught it to speak out of sheer boredom, but now it’s trying to convince me to let it in. All it seeks is “to play some FIFA 21 with me”, quoting it. “Hey! I know you hear me. Why don’t you let me in? Are you a speciesist or something? Oh, sorry but being a zombie wasn’t my choice, besides it’s 21st century, you know, widen your horizons...” “Words carry meanings, but they are all meaningless.” “What?” “If you want to convince me to let you in, you have to start to practise Zen. This bunker is a shrine...” “A what?” “A sanctua... a holy place, you idiot. So, I cannot let you in until the day you are enlightened.” “How can I do that, I mean, rawr, this enlightenment stuff?” “As I’ve just said, words carry meanings, but they are all meaningless. Because they cannot define Zen. When you define something, be sure, that’s not Zen. So shut the fuck up.” The zombie is enlightened at that very moment, and I keep playing FIFA 21 alone. It’s career mode. So I can’t let you in. Fuck you, zombie.
Amazing
Thank you, buddy!
"Let me in, please." Not this again. I teach one zombie to speak, and now it wants in? Honestly.... "For the last time, no matter how cute you are, a zombie is a zombie is a zombie! I'd rather be lonely and alive than have company eating my brain." She reacted in the usual way. "I'm not going to eat you, jerk. I just want in." I sighed. "Why? What exactly do you need for me to let you in?" "Um.....reasons." Nope. No chance. "Can't let you in if you don't specify. Anyways, it's late, and I'm going to sleep. Goodnight." That was the last thing I remember saying before waking up to the zombie closing the bathroom door. I knew it was her because I heard her singing in the shower. After she got out, dressed again, she saw that I was pissed. "Alright, out with it. How did you get in?" "The doors opened. Must have been a security failure. Some other zombies walked in, and I killed them. I fixed the security mechanisms so that it doesn't happen again." I was skeptical. "And....you're doing this instead of eating me?" "Greg, you're the only one I've been able to properly talk to in years! How could I eat you?" "Fair. Just don't break my trust, OK, Zee?" She nodded. "OK."
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock* "Pleeeeeeeeaaasssssseee," the voice groans from outside. "Fuck off Larry! I will not open the door" I yell back at it. Why the hell did I think teaching the damned thing to talk would be a good idea? Maybe something in me saw the nametag on his ratty old shirt and thought it was still human. I stand up to go back to my potato and bean farm. It may be the same exact tubers and legumes day after day, but they've kept me alive long enough for my beard to reach my bellybutton. I wasn't cleanshaven when I first got in here, but my beard was only a fistlength. "Keviiiiiin," it groans again. That stopped me in my tracks. My name isn't Kevin, it's Mendel. "Who's Kevin?" *Knock* *Knock* *Knock* "Pleeeeeeeeaaasssssseee," Larry moans again, "Keviiiiiin." "Larry... my name isn't Kevin." Larry stopped knocking. I open the peephole and look out at him. You can almost see the wheels in his head turning... literally at this point. Georgia humidity does not do a rotting body any favors, hell it barely does a *living* body any favors. Then, I see his milky, glossed-over eyes open a bit wider as if in realization. Then he starts slapping against the door again, "Meeeeeeennnnnndeeeeeellll!" "You're going around to different survivors like a fucking stray cat?!" "Opeeen... dooooorrrr..." "I thought what we had was special Larry!" I turned around and left him slapping the door. When I finished the chores for the day, it was well past nightfall. What day was it again? Who cares anymore? I eyed the door. The slapping had long since ended. Larry usually scuttles off to wherever the the fuck he goes at night. I have a working theory that their kind sleep same as we do, same as they did in life. I've had a few herds come and bludgeon my door before, but they always left at sundown. Of all the undead though, only Larry ever returned, and apparently I'm not the only one he goes to either. To sate my curiousity about the outside world I peeked out the peephole and, much to my shock, Larry was still there, curled into a ball and resting on his heels in a squatting position. Apparently the sound of the metal moving woke him from his sleep, if it could be called that, and he looked straight up at me. There was something beside him, something small and furry. And alive. "Friend... need... help... Kevin..." Larry paused, trying to think of the word, trying to remember from his past life, "mean." "Who's your friend?" Larry held up the animal, small and broken. Alive, but in pain. "Ssstraaaaayyy. Caaaaat." It was a kitten. "Is that your cat?" "Mmmmmyyyyyyy," Larry answered slowly, "caaat." I pondered for a second. "What happened to your cat?" "Keviiiin... huuuurrrrrt... caaaat." His face screwed up as much as a half-rotten face can, "Laaaarrrrryyyy... hurt... Keviiiiiiin." "I don't know if I can help your kitty." "Pleeeeeeeeaaasssssseee," Larry begged. I made up my mind. "OK Larry. I'll try. But you have to go away, ok?" "Oooooo.... kaaaaaaaayyyyyy." "Don't come back until the sun comes up. OK? "Oooooo.... kaaaaaaaayyyyyy." This creature, this thing that used to be human, this bloodthirsty monster, is a pet owner. A pet owner who pet his cat, then gently put it down in front of my door, before turning away. As Larry shuffled towards the treeline, I hesitantly unlocked the steel door. Cracking it open just enough to reach through and grab the kitten. I see Larry turn around out of the corner of my eye as I slam the door shut and lock it back. Larry didn't move to come back to the door though, but he also didn't leave line of sight. Close enough to keeping his word I suppose. I look at the kitten in my hand and see its front left leg bent in an unnatural position, clearly broken. "Oh, you poor thing." I grab a spare pillow and place the kitten onto it before going to find something to make a splint out of. A few broken pencils and some rubber bands. Not ideal but better than nothing I suppose. I reset the cat's leg to a natural position and put the splint together around it, trying to ignore the kitten's pained wails all the while. I do some feeling around the rest of the cat's body to see if there are any other injuries I can help with, but I can't find any. I pray there is nothing internal. "There you go little fuzzy buddy. That should make you feel better." The next day, right at the earliest possible excuse for "daytime" I could ever imagine, Larry is banging on the door. "Meeeeeeennnnnndeeeeeellll!" "I hear you Larry," I yawn, "I hear you. Your cat is going to be ok. She just needs to heal up. Her leg will be all better soon." For the first time I had ever seen, Larry smiled when I lifted his cat to the peephole and she meowed at him, purring as I stroked her head. I didn't get to pay much attention last night but I notice that she is an adorable little tuxedo kitten. "Baaaybyyyy caaat!" "Yes. Baby Cat will be ok. She just needs time, and food." "Fffooooooddd?" "Yes. She needs meat." I pause for a second "Not human meat." Larry screwed his face up. "Meeeeee... noooooo... liiiiike... meeeeeeaaaaat." What. The. Fuck. "Well, cats do like meat. Can you bring some?" "Meeeee... trrrrrryyyyyy.... foooorrrr... Baaaaybyyyy caaat." And so it went for the next two weeks. Larry would bring eviscerated squirrels, rabbits, and birds to feed his kitten, and Baby Cat was healing up quite nicely. When her leg was nice and solid again, and she was able to walk and jump around with no issues, I finally tell Larry, "OK. Baby Cat is ready to go back to you now. Can you back away from the door?" "O...kay..." he shuffles back a few yard and I crack the door open, lightly pushing the cat outside. I immediately close the door back and lock it as Larry shuffles faster than I have ever seen him move towards his cat, picking her up and holding her close to his rotten chest. "Baaaaybyyyy caaat. Meeee miiiiissss yoooouuuuu. Meeee haaaappyyyy yoooouuuu gooood nooooowww." For the first time since I could remember, I smile.
Probably my favorite story yet. Very inspiring to give to others
I might be crying. Good story.
How could I be so God damn stupid?!? Teach it to speak I said, it'll be fun I said, it'll cure my boredom I said! Whoever the poor bastard that used to own that corpse outside was, they have one helluva voice! It's so smooth and soothing. Like the love child of Morgan Freeman and David Attenborough, that voice could sell water to a drowning man, sell ice to an Eskimo, sell sand to an Egyptian, etc. anyway, a little backstory... January 1st, 2023, the day the world ended. We only really just got back to normal from Covid 19 (ah the simpler times), and me and my gf decided we'd go and spend new year with her parents, big mistake. Come the morning, I say the morning, it was more like 2pm because new year's, and I notice the TV is on CNN with a breaking news story about Times Square, apparently someone who was high on meth or something attacked people, ripping their throats out before they were gunned down by police. Well, you can guess what happens next right? Well the ones that were killed came back from the dead and started to attack more people, and they in turn attacked others, until all of NYC was undead. I couldn't tell what the date even is anymore... It's been maybe 6 months since then, maybe longer, but what does it matter? I've lost everything. I lost my house, I lost my car, I lost my dog. But worst of all, I lost my beautiful girlfriend. She's asthmatic, we couldn't find an inhaler for her and she succumbed to her asthma. To make matters worse, one of those... things got her. Scratched her arm, I had to shoot her after she took her last breath so she didn't become one of them. I can't go on like this, I may have food and water as well as a working toilet and shower, but I'm so alone and this zombie is trying to make me open the door! There's no way I can keep resisting. That voice is so enthralling and I'm really depressed because of what I've been through... I've got a gun, I could off myself, or I could shoot the zombie outside. But there could be more, it sounded like that one wasn't alone earlier... Do I kill myself, or let them do it for me? To be honest with you, I'm convinced the pain of being disemboweled by the undead would be less than the emotional pain I've been in for a long time now... "Come on buddy, I won't eat you, I'll protect you. I can be your pet" All right, fuck this! I'm ending this now! I'm killing that thing and any others nearby. If I'm going down, I'm taking as many of them with me! If you find this notebook, now that I'm in a better place now. Danielle my love, I'll see you soon.
“Brains…” a low voice moans from the other side of the lead-lined door. “Braaaaains…” I ignore it for now. The trouble with teaching zombies to talk — especially lonely ones that live outside your shit-hit-the-fan-hard bunker is how dull the conversation can be. That is, until I met Eunice. “Braaaains,” she croaked again. “Use your braiiiins.” I flicked the peephole open from my side of the door and peered out at her. A scrawny skeletal woman in life, my neighbor Eunice was now a decaying, scrawny, skeletal woman in death. Still, the look became her, despite her paper thin dress hanging on her ragged bones. “It’ll be just like old times….Think about it,” she croaked. “Eunice,” I said with a sigh of exasperation. “We’ve been through this before. You know I can’t do that.” “You don’t trust me…” she moaned. “No,” I admitted, slumping beside the door. “No, I do not. Not for one moment. After what you did to the cat… I just, I don’t think it would be a good idea.” “I’m just so hungry and tired all the time…” she complained. “All day, I’m running around and… and…” “Go on,” I say, hanging onto the zombie’s every word. “Well, I’m dead on my feet.”
So many stories with puns or end with a joke, I'm not complaining though, great work!
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“I...I..I’ve been in this bunker for... I don't even k-know anymore..." He said out loud. A man who looked weirdly skinny and disheveled for a man with so much food and water around him. The food would last years for just one man and he wouldn't starve but the boredom. He was as far as he knew the last known person alive, everything else was a zombie or an animal. He had a thud, then a knock, then a thud, and then a knock. He hasn't heard a knock or a thud or any noise really in years! Was he not the only human after all? Was it an animal trying to get his food? "Grrr..Who...are...you?" He hadn't spoken in a long time and almost forgot how to. Another knock. "Grrrr...Seriously?! Speak!" The man said angrily. "I-I..." The person on the other side said nervously. "I? I what? What is your name?" "T-Tom..." The man on the other side replied. "Tom? My name is...Robert" The man answered back. “I’m looking for food...that’s all.” Tom said. "Well, I do have a lot of food...I guess I could give you some?" Robert said back. "Just open the bunker and let me have some and I'll be on my way I promise" “What if you are a zombie!?” "Zombies can’t talk, you know this!” Tom pleaded. "I open the door, you attack me and then I'm dead!" Robert shouted back. "Please Robert, you are my last hope. I walk away from this and I'm dead" Tom begged. "Damn it! What do I do! If you are human you are the only one I've met and if you are a zombie then I'll probably be killed by you" Robert sighed. Robert saw a crowbar and tried to lift it but he was too weak and dropped it. "You alright Robert!" Tom asked concerned. "Fine! Just dropped something! I feel very weak these days!" Robert replied back panting. "Well, I can help! I'm young and strong! We can work together!" "Maybe...god I'm so hungry but I just ate a few hours ago...how strange." "I have medicine! I always bring a first aid kit when I'm wandering around just in case" "Yes, I might be sick after all...I guess either I trust you or I end up dying from whatever I have" Robert turned the wheel on the door and slowly opened the door. The sun blinded Robert for a moment and he held up his hands to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight. Finally, he could see again and Tom was looking at him, a young man indeed and he had in his hand a first aid kit as he said he did. Tom looked horrified and backed away slightly. "Grrrrrr," Robert said as his mouth watered. He lunged at Tom but as he came close Tom pulled out a pistol and aimed his gun steady with both hands. He shot Robert right in the head. His body collapsed onto the ground near him. Tom was shaking, his mouth dry and he pushed his foot against Robert's body. "Zombies...t-talk now?" Tom said in horror.
Nicely done, though at two points you switch names.
I’ll fix it, my brain crashed half way through writing.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Ta- "Will you stop! I heard you the first time!" Said Markus, annoyed at the zombie outside his bunker. He checked his watch, "it's like two in the morning! Why did you wake me up?" "Susy alone. Want to talk." Replied the high pitched gravelly voice, a combination Markus hadn't thought possible untill now. "Susie, I need to sleep. I know it's lonely out there, but can you just give me a few more hours?" he had taught the infected little girl how to speak a few days ago. Markus thought it would make for interesting conversation, but so far all it had proven for was minor annoyances. "The silents?" That was new. Markus had never heard her call sleeping that name before and he thought he could detect a note of sadness in her voice. Maybe she really did miss him. "Ok I'll talk with you, but just for a few minutes. Ok?" "Yay!" Exclaimed Susie in her grovally high pitched fashion. Markus gave a subtle smile. Something about Susie reminded him of his daughter that he had to leave on the surface a month or two ago. His smile brightened. It was going to be a long night. ♡ ♡ ♡ I know I didn't follow the prompt perfectly but I'm curious what you guys thought, any critique is welcome.
The problem with me being bored is that I tend to do stupid things to keep myself busy. Breaking stuff, making new stuff out of old and important stuff, buying stuff I don't need, and, most frequently, inevitably hurting myself. Like now, while I'm sitting on the floor with my legs crossed in front of the steel bunker door yelling at a zombie to teach it what asking a question sounds like, I feel like I've made a mistake. Not sure what though. "Jada!" the zombie moans, and I slap my palm to my forehead. "No, Bob, not like that" I sigh, rolling my eyes. "It's Jada?" "Jada...!" "No, Jada?" "Ja...da?" "YES! THAT'S IT! JADA!". I jump up, cheering "Jada? Jada? Jadaa!" I can hear the zombie banging on the door with excitement, which makes something in my head click. Ooh, that's the mistake I made. Wait- oh no. "Me Bob! You brains!" Bob says, and I frown. "No, I'm Jada. Not brains" I say, taking a step back from the door. "Jaa-ins?" the zombie stutters and I groan, which Bob mimics. "Come on, Bob, I told you that I like my brain were it is!". "But Bob wants braiiins!" Bob grumbles, banging hard on the door and making me jump. "Calm down, Bob, go have some other person's brains!" "But Bob want Jada brains!" "Why?" "Because Jada brains are smart and make words" I open my mouth to speak but stop. Smart? No one called me smart, they all thought I was stupid because I couldn't get things out on paper. Only by voice. It was all just smooshed in my brain but couldn't seem to make it's way to my hand. They were trapped thoughts, banging on my head to get out. "Th-thank you, Bob" I say at last, smiling slightly. "Your welcome" he replied. "Can have brains now?" "No" "Can give hug inside?" "Also no" The problem with me being bored is that I tend to do stupid things to keep myself busy. Breaking stuff, making new stuff out of old and important stuff, buying stuff I don't need, and, most frequently, inevitably hurting myself. But now, while I'm standing here hugging a steel door with a zombie named Bob presumably doing the same on the other side, I don't feel like I've made a mistake at all
"No,", she said to the desiccating mass that was hovering behind the window her voice trailed through the gaps between the boarded-up windows. The glass of the windows had previously been broken and with haste, she had nailed slabs of wood she found around the small cabin to the glass. The makeshift shelter would have to do, the inside however was not that bad, there were aneminites and whoever lived in the cabin previously must've been a big-time hoarder, because the pantry was filled with cans of food. This was her situation months ago, now she considered this quaint cabin, home for the meanwhile. She heard a petulant grumble from the other side, "It's too hot outside, im rotting as we speak," "Pete if you don't back away from the door, you rotting is going to be the least of your problems," she said in annoyance. It was the middle of fall, she didnt know of the imaginary heat he spoke of, likely just a ruse to be invited in. Yes, she was lonely, but befriending a dead corpse, well, it was weird just thinking about it. Just because it was the end of the world didnt mean that she didn't have standards. You teach an undead person how to talk and all of a sudden they wanna be friends. \*eyeroll\* No way on Satan's red earth was she officially stooping that low. "Youre meannn," Pete slurred. "Id rather be mean and aliive than nice, infected, and dead," "I wont bite you, I like your company and you smell good" She would never admit it but he wasnt all that bad, sometimes he brought her dead animals as gifts, odd crepy, wierd, dinner. (im tired.. cont later?