Once Bitten

I wake up to someone groaning next to my bed. I turn onto my back and open my eyes, blinking the sleep away. I sigh, grab my axe, and bash the person’s brains in. The zombie moans its last, and collapses. I throw my legs over the side of my bed and throw my black tanktop over my head. I slide on black shorts, and examine the zombie. It was a male, a butcher it looks like. Fat, with a white apron, and rotting skin that smells disgusting.

            “Sorry meat man.” I mumble.

            I drag him to the corner of the attic I’ve been living in for a week. He gives out a low moan, and glares up at me. I grab my axe again, and hammer his head in. He must have been a hard head, because when I try to pull it out, my axe gets stuck. Time to find a new weapon. I sigh, still sleepy, and trudge to the cracked mirror and tie my brown hair up into a ponytail. The short choppy strands fall out quickly. I widen my blue eyes, and grin, but soon frown, shrug, and stand up. I pack my gun, ammo, food, screwdriver, and knife into my black backpack, and slide out the window onto the roof.

            As you probably already guessed, I’m living in the “zombie apocalypse”. And yet, killing zombies is everyday life for me. I heard once that life wasn’t like this; people could get what they wanted, when they wanted. Food wasn’t a problem, except in now forgotten continents. I guess some mad scientist did something stupid, and, oh hey, it’s a freaking apocalypse. As for me, I’m 16, a female, and yes, I’m alone.Shocking, hm? A survivor had me, and died while doing it. A doctor was lucky enough to survive for 14 years after finding me alone, and trained me to kill zombies. He died two years ago by a chance encounter with a hoard of zombies.

            So now I’m on my own. And before you ask, yes there were survivors. And yes, they killed a lot of zombies, but of course, every person’s time comes, and they all died, only leaving behind zombies or frightened children. Now, there are maybe… oh, two million zombies left? I don’t know, just a guess, not a whole lot of them. Most starved and ate each other. Others died by human.

            I’ve traveled around for a while after the doc died. I went to small “tribes”, but they all shunned me, seeing as how I’m not “natural”. Can’t blame them. If I were normal, I wouldn’t want some lone girl with an axe roaming around my society. Still, I visit the camps I went to for help, and now only find zombies and stray food. Sucks to be them.

            I jump to the next roof over and climb into the building. This must be where meat man came from, because it’s a butcher shop. I see a zombie moaning and groaning in the back. And then a girl screaming.

            “Perfect…” I roll my eyes, and sneak over to the back. A zombie is cornering a girl, maybe 30-something, who’s just waving around a knife and screaming. I grab a machete (who knew?!), and whack it into the zombie’s head. He turns and moans, not dead yet- I mean, he’s dead, but- forget it. I slam the machete into him again and he finally dies.

            “W…who are you?” The girl stutters.

            “Carmen San Diego.” I say sarcastically. She looks confused, so I groan and help her up. “The name’s Ash. You?”

            “S- Sarina.”

            “Cool. Where did you come from Sarina?”

            “Oh… Well, here. Let me take you back to the base.” She smiles. I raise an eyebrow. I should’ve known. She doesn’t look like one to survive alone. She’s in a super short skirt and midriff, and sneakers. Her hair is strawberry blond and curled.

            “How long have you been surviving this?” I ask.

            “Well, it started when I was at a cheer competition in high school.” She explains, super perky, despite what’s just happened. “So… well, I’m thirty three now…so  I dunno how long; but I never go outside of the base. I always avoided equip-duty until yesterday.” She rolls her eyes. I sigh. If the “base” could stand her this long, then they must have a lot of food, and patience.

            “Sure. Take me to the base.” I sigh, throwing up my arms. She grins. I turn and pack up as much weapons as I can. I find more ammo, a butcher knife, a hunting knife, and a bone grinder. I keep the machete out, not wanting to take any chances. As we walk, she talks super loud.

            God, she never grew up, did she? I think. We finally arrive at a large neighborhood. As we enter, I widen my eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it. So many people, all well fed and healthy, as though oblivious to the world outside. Hell, I even see kids! I’ve only seen three kids in my life, but wow! There’s about thirteen here!

            “C’mon, I’ll take you to the boss. He likes to meet newcomers.” Sarina grins. I notice her tugging her hair over her shoulder, as though nervous. She ignores me, turns, and leads me to the house at the end of the block. People smile at me, friendly. I ignore them. I have a plan. And I’m sticking to it.

            “Mr. Boss?” Sarina knocks on the door. A man in a suit opens the door. He smiles, but it looks forced.

            “Please, do come in.” He says. Sarina walks in, and I follow, but not before seeing a pleading look in the man’s eyes.

            “Sarina…” I gape at the fat man before me. He has a white beard, and a large bulging stomach. I glare in disgust as he shoves his face with meat. “Who is this young lady?” He licks his lips and stares with fish eyes at me. I cross my arms.

            “Oh, no one.” Sarina shoots me a look. I raise an eyebrow. Are these people sane? “Well, she saved me on equip-duty. Isn’t that amazing?!” Sarina asks, a new tone of excitement in her voice. The fat man, Mr. Boss, raises a sausage at her, a gross grin on his face.

            “Ah, that’s my girl.” She squeals with delight, and runs over to him, sitting on his lap. She squeals again, and I guess she’s trying to sound sexy, but instead she sounds like a dying pig. But hey, Mr. Boss man likes it, so who am I to discriminate his weird likes?

            “Take her to room 213.” The fat boss mumbles, and Sarina nods. She takes my hand, and drags me outside. As I look around, I notice how some of the people have a pleading look in their eyes. Sarina opens the door to a house and we go into a room labeled 213. It’s nicer than any other place I’ve stayed at. A nice soft bed, lighting, and a nice breeze.

            “If you need anything just come and talk to me, or Mr. Boss, or anyone outside. Your roommate is Lila, a 19 year old.” Sarina smiles, but I see a look of hatred in her eyes, and regret saving her. She leaves me, and in comes a girl with greasy red hair and freckles, and brown eyes.

            “Hi!” She says, overly perky. “I’m Lila! You must be Ash. Welcome to The Base!” She sounds like Mary, a lady I met at a hospital I once camped out at. Super perky, overly nice, and a lot of energy. Mary died by zombies.

            “Yeah. Nice to meet you.” I force a smile, and her grin widens. “Could you give me a tour?”

            “Of course! First I’ll take you to the other houses, and then the food house, and then the doctor’s!” She leads me out into the afternoon. I meet several over-perky people. I’ve never liked people like Mary. They all annoy me. Next, she takes me to a large bunker full of food; crackers, meat, jerky, salt, tea, cake, bread. You name it, it’s in there.

            “The food bunker is very exclusive. Since you saved one of us, and lived, you’re an exclusive member!” Lila grins, and leads me to the doctor’s. I meet Dr. Harrison, and get shown the med. cabinet. It’s guarded by a huge safe, so I note when the office closes, and we leave.