44 Days Later...
I hate mornings.
Why does the sun have to be so ding-dang bright and cheerful as soon as I wake up? Why do the birds start singing their harmonious birdsongs when all I want is silence? Why the hell does my body refuse to fall asleep at two in the morning but decides to knock itself out at noon?
You know what I need? I need coffee.
And therapy.
But instead, all I have is an empty water cooler and a plush turtle I found hidden in the back drawer of our former principal's desk. Señor Turtle-Tot is a wonderful therapist, but he's not even close to the real thing.
Uh . . .
Where was I going with this?
Ah, right. Mornings. Hate 'em.
Unfortunately for me, I was forced to wake up to yet another day of promise, adventure, and zombie-infested towns that went on for miles. Yippee.
I sat up as I stretched on the pullout couch, popping my knuckles and back with a satisfied sigh. I licked my lips and zoned out for a good minute or two, trying to organize my thoughts, before reluctantly standing up and running a hand through my tangled hair.
Let's get you up to speed. It's been forty-four days since the apocalypse started, and June and I haven't seen anybody else, uh, that was un-undead since.
To be honest, I got bored of being around June all day. I don't mean that in a mean way, really. She is my best friend, after all.
But she's so serious, and she's actually worried about the apocalypse. In my opinion, this is literally the perfect time to have some fun. Whether it's raiding the stores, playing "Cut the Limbs" with my fellow zombies, or achieving my biggest goal yet, taming a Winged Wretch, I think we should be having the greatest time of our lives.
Well, except for the apocalypse part.
Yawning, I went over to my door and unlocked it, pulling the chains off as I opened it. I trudged out into the hallway and relocked it, then headed into the girls' public bathroom. Luckily, all my necessities were already there, so I didn't have to go back to get my stuff.
I started to get ready for the day. Sure, it's the end of the world, but that doesn't mean that I have to quit my beauty routine. (Even though I'm already naturally beautiful, if I do say so myself.)
I tried to put my hair into a ponytail, but as my hair looked like an explosion that went wrong, it wouldn't cooperate with me. And keep in mind that explosions can't go wrong. They just explode. Nothing more.
But my hair exploded badly. Incorrectly. It failed to explode, and yet it succeeded.
I tried to brush it, and I managed to get a few good tugs before the brush snapped. Shrugging, I glanced at the corner of the bathroom, where my giant heap of clothes lay.
I carefully walked over to the pile and peered over it. Gulping, I plunged my hand down into the pile.
"Oh, Fashion Fudge Lord in the sky," I muttered quickly as my hand groped around blindly in the mound of clothes. "Please bless me today with decent clothing, preferably without any stains or zombie organs. Please, please, please . . . yes!"
Thankfully, the Fashion Fudge Lord was in a good mood today, so they granted me a pair of combat boots, cargo pants, and a white hoodie, which was a fairly decent draw compared to last week's pick.
You can try imagining it. It'll still be way worse than whatever you can come up with. Trust me.
As I looked myself up and down in the mirror, I pretended to flex my muscles, making weird poses until I was cheered up.
Then I grabbed my broken brush pieces and exited the bathroom.
Turning corridor after corridor after corridor, I finally arrived at a certain door.
I knocked on it twice, then waited patiently.
A few moments later, a very drowsy-looking June opened the door. She stared at me tiredly, then looked down to see my dead brush.
She sighed in exasperation and face-palmed.
"Again, (Y/N)?"
". . . Yeah."
꧁꧂
"(Y/N), I still don't understand how you manage to break these things," said June as she handed me my newly-fixed brush back. Nothing a little duct tape can't fix, right?
"Hey, it's not me that's the problem," I protested as I pointed at my hair. "It's that."
"Isn't this, like, the third brush you've snapped in the past six weeks?"
"I told you, it's not me, it's my hair. By now, I'm starting to think that it's gained sentience—"
I was interrupted by a loud yell.
". . . Did you hear that?" I asked.
"Yeah," replied June, furrowing her eyebrows. "Was it a human?"
"I don't know," I said, walking over to the window. "I thought this town was deserted. There isn't a single human in sight."
"Then, if it's not a human, what is it?"
The question hung in the air as June and I tried to figure out an answer.
Then we heard the moaning.
Uh oh.
The zombies.
June and I shared a look. As if we shared the same mind, we both jumped up. June grabbed her spear while I grabbed my own weapon.
We rushed out the the door. June ran down the steps using her super Sonic speed. I, on the other hand, jumped onto the railing and slid down like a pro.
And by "like a pro", I mean that I crashed into a locker and nearly broke my nose.
June hurriedly helped my bruised body up as the yells and groans increased. We continued on.
We burst through some sets of doors, stopping at a particular one. June slowly inched closer to the barricaded entrance and motioned for me to copy her. I went up to the door and pressed my ear against it.
"I'm so sorry, guys," I heard someone say. "I dragged us into this, and now we're totally doomed!"
Huh. Why does that voice sound so familiar?
I heard some rumbling and moaning that was getting louder by the second.
No! Those idiots outside the door must have released the zombie ball from the teachers' lounge!
I peeled my ear away from the door, and glanced at June. She flicked her eyes from me to the door and raised an eyebrow.
Are you ready?
I quickly raised a hand for her to pause and pulled my hood up. Enough so that it wouldn't obscure my vision, but it would also prevent others from seeing my face.
Of course, this wasn't necessary. I was sure that whoever was on the other side of those doors was nice. But I liked the idea of my identity being a mystery. It was like I was a secret superhero working undercover.
Now in my secret superhero disguise, I nodded to June.
At her signal, we both pulled the doors open, revealing three strangers who stumbled in from the sudden movements.
I didn't get a chance to look at their faces properly because they all fell onto the floor on their backs.
June slammed the door behind us just before the zombie ball came through.
One of the guys groaned. I turned to look at him, even though he couldn't see my face. He sat up. My jaw dropped wide open.
Stalker Boy?
What the hell was he doing here?
Stalker Boy looked around. "What happened? Who opened the doors?" he asked in confusion.
Then another guy got up. I nearly threw my weapon at the wall in disbelief.
It was Dirk.
Now what the hell was he doing here with Stalker Boy?
Another boy got up as well, but I didn't know him. He was wearing a lab coat adorned with—were those Christmas lights? Ignoring his peculiar taste in fashion, I scanned the boy up and down and recognized him as the guy who always followed Stalker Boy around, so probably like his friend? Wasn't he on the bus on Apocalypse Day, too?
June finally barricaded the door securely, and spun around with her spear pointed at the boys.
"What are you idiots doing here?" she said, glaring at them.
Stalker Boy gasped with joy. "June! You're not undead!"
I wasn't alarmed that Stalker Boy knew June's name. After all, he was called Stalker Boy for a reason. However, some part of me suspected that June probably didn't know this guy's name, and if she did, she probably wouldn't remember it.
I mean, even I didn't remember it. That's why I was calling him Stalker Boy, however offensive that name might sound.
"Well, duh," said June, rolling her eyes.
"Uh . . ." Stalker Boy hesitated. I guess this was not the welcome he had expected. I wouldn't have either, personally.
Stalker Boy shook it off and grinned. He posed dramatically, still on the floor.
"Fear not! We're here to rescue y—"
Suddenly, a decayed, disgusting, zombie hand broke through the door.
"Ah!" yelled June and Stalker Boy's friend.
Suddenly, the door exploded due to the impact of the zombie ball. A zombie tried to grab Stalker Boy's leg.
Unfortunately for the zombie, June whacked it right in the face. The zombie fell, knocking down other zombies in the process. Like a bunch of zombie dominos.
A few zombies reached for Dirk. He cried out in surprise.
Before a single one could even touch him, I grabbed the zombie closest to him by the head and slammed it into the ground. As zombies didn't have blood, a weird gray ooze began to spill out from its skull as it groaned in protest.
Grabbing two more zombies by the head as well, I banged them together and dropped them just in time to seize the last one by the neck, which had been about to bite Dirk amidst all the chaos.
I slammed it into the ground and stepped on its chest, doing my best to avoid its flailing arms. I took out my weapon and started to smack and stab the zombie violently, its loud groans falling on deaf ears.
Back when the apocalypse had started, I had trouble fighting zombies. What if they still had human souls trapped inside of them? What if I was actually hurting another human being, but I hadn't been aware? What if they could still feel basic emotion, and me fighting them would physically and emotionally hurt them?
I snapped out of my delusion two weeks into the apocalypse, when June nearly got devoured by a child zombie.
A fricking. Child. Zombie.
That's when I realized that zombies weren't capable of feeling human emotion. In fact, there wasn't a shred of humanity left in them at all. The minute they turned, they were nothing more than a bunch of annoying creatures that craved mushy brains and had ruined our lives forever.
So I stopped feeling guilty.
Back in the present, I continued to beat the zombie up, hitting and whacking it violently with hard, painful blows.
Well, I imagine that the blows were painful. Zombies can't actually feel any pain.
I delivered the final blow, putting enough pressure on my weapon to crack its skull open. It twitched rapidly, then stilled. The zombie was incapacitated for now.
I turned around to face everyone else. June was used to my aggressive fighting skills, so she currently wore her poker face. Stalker Boy and his little friend, on the other hand, were gaping at me with their mouths wide open. I think their eyes sparkled a little bit.
As for Dirk, he simply furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. I couldn't understand his reason for this, but since I felt nervous about the zombie ball on the other side of those doors, I just gestured towards the doors on the other side of the corridor.
June understood my message.
"This way!" she yelled to the boys. We all followed after her.
I managed to catch up to her, and now we were running side-by-side.
"You were amazing back there," said June, slowing down to a jog.
I shrugged. "Didn't have breakfast yet. I was hangry. The zombie had it coming."
"Remind me not to annoy you when you're hungry."
"Noted."
꧁꧂