The Rehabilitated (Sample Only Book 1)

Improving

I'd had my breakfast and got into my uniform, so I went down to the prison area, where all the zombies were, along with Jerry and Alan.

"Hey, you looking forward to your shift?" Alan asked as he looked at me.

"Uh not really." I shook my head, "It's the same old stuff, you know."

"I get it." Alan nodded.

I walked over and stood by the first cell. The smell in the prison was the worst ever; I would've used a nice smelling spray if there was any left. Unfortunately the sprays had all been used up and they said it wasn't a necessity, so no one would be going to look for it.

"I heard about that CRD sufferer being calmer, what was it like witnessing it?" Jerry asked.

"It was pretty worrying, we only had that vaccine and another to test. All the others before that had killed the zombies," I said and Jerry glared at me.

Jerry didn't like anyone calling them zombies, but I was just so used to calling them that. It would be hard to break the habit of calling them CRD sufferers instead of zombies.

"Uh, so Caitlin injected the... CRD sufferer and he pretty much stopped growling. He seemed pretty quiet when I was with him."

Alan was smiling, clearly engaged with what I was saying.

"And I decided to call him Murphy, since he's kinda been cured and Murphy from Z Nation was the first to be cured on that show," I said.

"That's a good idea," Jerry responded and nodded.

Where was Murphy? I hoped that he was still as calm as he had been yesterday.

I looked at the zombies in the cages around me and a lot of them had been infected ages ago. Their skin colour was a lot more grey or green and some of them had their guts hanging out. They were gross to look at, but the smell of them was far worse.

There were a few recently infected zombies; soldiers often went out to find newly infected zombies and they brought them back here. I was glad that I didn't have to leave the base to capture CRD sufferers because there was a much higher risk of being infected. I'd hate seeing how bad the outside world had become. Plus, there were a lot more zombies outside the base; I'd be scared if I had to deal with more than one at a time. It was just as well that I kept guard over the zombies at the base and moved them from one place to another.

I looked at the zombies around me and saw a CRD sufferer who resembled Murphy in the middle of the prison on the left side. It was hard to tell since some zombies looked very similar.

I walked over, making sure to stay in the centre so that the zombies couldn't grab me and stood opposite Murphy. His eyes met mine and he seemed calm, the way he had been before.

Murphy stood up and crept over to the bars. "W-w-water." Murphy growled and my eyes went wide.

I couldn't believe that Murphy had just spoken, even if it did sound very like a zombie.

"Did he just fucking speak?" Alan asked as he pointed at Murphy.

Jerry stood there with his eyes wide and his mouth hung open, as he stared at Murphy.

"Uh I think he wants water." I replied and Murphy nodded.

"Right, I'll umm, go get it." Alan said.

He walked towards me and I took a step towards Murphy, to prevent being in the way. My heart was pounding, hoping that Murphy wouldn't attack me since I was quite close to him.

"Name?" Murphy asked as he pointed at me.

"Oh wow, my name is Isabella." I replied with a smile.