It's Not Our Fault

Chapter 1

Frankie stood overlooking the newly recruited soldiers. She was completely absorbed in her own world, when a startled grunt of pain snapped her out of her reverie.  She sighed, and made her way to the soldier. Glancing at her clipboard with this squadrons member's information, she squared her shoulders and neutralized her scarred face. 

"Soldier Barrete, what seems to be the problem?" 

Barrete was one of the 0.03% of the worlds population with the "Hybrid DNA" genetic mutation. This gave them a sound mind, but insomnia, weaker muscles and lungs, and nerves which still felt pain made the carriers for this mutation made them weaker soldiers. Most zombies with it  made their way into medical or strategic fields, but Frankie, or 'Commander Wyn', saw promise in him.

"I...I stubbed my toe...Then I tripped and hit a rock."

Frankie nodded at a pancake-sized rock that lay just a couple feet behind Barrete. A smear of reddish-black blood stained the stone. Looking to Barrete's nose, she saw blood running out of his nose. It was apparent that he had broken his nose.

"Evidently. Go to the medic's office."

"That's not necessary, Commander. I don't need, it really!"

"Don't bother arguing, soldier. You're due for a checkup anyway."

"Okay..."

Barrete half ran, half jogged away, removing himself from the embarrassing situation. Frankie glanced back at her soldiers and barked.

"Back to work! Drill 54! Go!"

 Drill 54 was an attack pattern where the assailants would circle prey, and take alternate shots at killing or infecting humans. To practice, the squadron circled training dummies, selected their personal prey, and lunged at necks for kills or arms or legs for infection. Kills would be used for food. All infected would be trained, and screened for mutations to see what they would specialize in. Anyone under the age of twenty-one would be captured by the commander and brought to the nearest compound. Here, doctors with the same mutation as Frankie would test them for any mutations allowing their mind to survive an infection. If they passed the test, they would be recruited to the empire and given specialized training. If not, they would assimilate with the troops.

After a half hour, Frankie decided that her troop was ready for a break, and called in for a meal. Meals on the training grounds were technically training too, but with a payoff. Four live humans fresh from the farms were brought to Frankie's squadron. Two adult males, one adult female, and a little boy. They stood, quivering, as it was obvious what was coming. 

The squadron stood, drooling at the delicious sight before them. Soldier Hoppet, a twenty-four year old recruit had worse self-control than the others, attempted to lunge at the woman. The woman gave a high pitched squeal and both the men moved to protect her, but Frankie grabbed Hoppet's collar at the last minute and snarled viciously in warning. Hoppet gave a whimper and returned to her place in line.

"On my signal..."

"Drill 54!"

That was all it took. Her squadron ran at the humans en masse and attacked. Frankie watched fondly as the zombies flowed through the drill effortlessly. It was beautiful, honestly. The true strength of the zombie empire was in it's troops. But when Cleary and McAvalon began fighting over the twitching remains of the adult female, Frankie was forced to take the role of serious commander once more.

"Alright, alright, you two. Break it up."

Frankie pushed them apart while glaring at them sternly. Their behavior was surprise. Cleary was a level-headed soldier, a master of manipulator of humans. He was fond of scaring them into situations which resulted in their untimely deaths. McAvalon was an oddly intelligent zombie who had mastered simple speech in matter of months. It took most normal zombies years to master speaking.