The Dead and Undead

SHORT STORY

Of love and zombies

Vivek’s heart pounded as he held the blood-stained kitchen knife to his chest, crouching poised to attack behind the backroom door of the abandoned store. A few meters away, the… ‘creature’… snarled as it smashed piles of DVDs in a violent frenzy. Across from Vivek, cloaked in darkness, Jake crouched behind boxes of never-to-be-sold DVDs, staring intently at the creature. Vivek waited with bated breath, focusing on the comforting sensation of the knife at his chest and the pistol in his pocket. Until ten days ago, he had never touched a gun in his life. Quickly it had become a trusted friend.

Jake’s hand — stuck in a ‘stay’ motion — abruptly closed into a fist. On that signal, Vivek fluidly stepped into the doorway and cleanly stabbed the knife through the creature’s skull, withdrawing it immediately and holding it at the ready. The ‘thing’ slid silently to the floor, now very much dead, as opposed to… undead? It looked like it had been a young, Caucasian male prior to transformation, with long, blonde, beach-streaked hair and tattooed arms. Breathing heavily, Vivek looked around, and, seeing nothing more than scattered DVD covers, motioned to Jake. Silently they navigated the debris, making their way down to the ground level of the shopping mall, and then — maybe — out of this nightmare. Vivek barely gave a second thought as he stepped over the creature’s motionless body. A few days ago, he’d never have thought of killing anyone, or anything. A lot had changed.

It was only ten days ago that Vivek had been nothing more than an obese, mild-mannered, vegetarian software engineer. Certainly not a cold-blooded killer. That afternoon he’d looked down from his office on the fifteenth floor to witness a curious commotion on the street.

“Is it a protest?” Chuong asked. Hundreds of tiny specks of people scattered haphazardly in all directions, seemingly clashing with each other. There was no sign of police or authorities amidst the chaos.

“Reports are pouring in of strange disturbances all throughout the city” Tessa Lane of Channel Seven News was saying excitedly on the workroom TV. “Sam Newman is live on the ground… Oh My God!”

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