Last night everyone turned to zombies. That may sound awful, but really, it isn't that big a deal. Zombies don't think. They stand there and scream and chase you and eat you, but zombies don't think. Another thing is a lot of them have disabilities that can be used to your advantage. You may say that's cruel, but just wait until you're being chased by a paraplegic out for blood and see what you do.
Seriously, zombies are not that hard to live with, after the first week at least. After you learn how to get around and exist without being noticed. Silence is key. Don't do anything stupid either. Don't walk toward the sound. Don't ask someone if their human when they're trying to bite you. Dealing with zombies is not that big a deal either, if you go about it the right way. Light them up with a little bit of gasoline and a lighter. Some how get something to go through their head. Not that big a deal. After all, I handled the forty-year-old next door without much of a problem. I can handle them, right?
Wrong. Turns out I don't even have matches. Turns out I don't have a gun and what I used to rid myself of the neighbor is still hanging out of his skull. I have to get out of here, but I don't know how. The sound of them pounding up the stairs, each step rebounding in my brain as I slam my door shut. Turning quickly I realize, there's no way to kill them and the locked door is shaking with the sound of ten billion zombies trying to break it down and I'm scared. So scared.
Still, I try to keep my head straight. Zombies don't think, but that doesn't matter right now. A hiding spot would hold them off for a few moments but, like I said, zombies don't think, therefore zombies don't look. They destroy. They tear through things. It is much more effective than taking the time to look.
Despite all of that, in an attempt to keep with what I already know, I don't stand there and look stupid, but get proactive, throw open my window and climb out onto the roof of my house, trying not to make a sound as I do so, I crawl to the edge and look downward, into my street. Nothing less than I expected is down there, nothing more is either. It is hell down there. People shooting at living people as well as at zombies, cars hitting one another, confused people standing on their lawns ho are still confused as they suddenly get eaten by zombies. They do not understand. This is reality now, as they are standing there. They are not going to wake up. They are not going to fix things. If they keep up on this path, they're basically working for the zombies by killing others.
I need a gun. At least I figure I need one. Then I will not have to stand in the middle of a pack of living dead freaks in order to rid myself of one. I'd like to think that I'm not stupid. I figure it is smartest to take one of the neighbors. They are wasting their time, shooting at one another like that. Two of them had already been overtaken in the time it took me to figure out that I need a gun.
The zombies below me haven't figured out that I'm not in the room. I can hear them banging around, breaking everything I ever owned. But that isn't the issue. I need a gun. I need a way out off this roof.
The man next-door went down, runs, dropping his gun on the sidewalk and taking off down the street. Four houses down, he gets destroyed by a pile of very pissed off zombies. Just my luck, there is no focus on me or the gun that I want so badly. Still, it would not be smart. Going down there would draw attention to me and, as far as I can tell, once you get a zombie's attention, they don't leave you alone without a load of effort on your part.
Below me, Zack, who was the kid of the guy who used to be my forty year old neighbor ran by, picked up the gun and started shooting at random. I, sighed, annoyed at the very human response as well as all the stupid things he was doing, drawing attention to himself, shooting things at random. I waited patiently and watched him die.
I can watch a man die without much thought. I can think straight while facing down thousands of zombies. I use other people's disadvantages to help achieve my own will. I might have no soul. And you know what. That doesn't bother me for some reason. Maybe it will later.
Time on a roof in a zombie infected neighborhood passes awfully slowly. I lie on my back and watch the sky, wrapping my sweatshirt around me to protect me from the cold morning air. About twenty minutes in, I realize that I have to go to the bathroom really badly. The zombies sound like they are finished, then again zombie actions and zombie sounds aren't always the same thing. Still, I need to pee and I need to get off this god damn roof or else I'm going to die here.
Still, entering the house is not a good idea in any form, but an idea appears in my head. The houses in this neighborhood are close and that forty year old neighbor and his son's house has a window which had a carport underneath in the most convenient fashion. A true sign, in my mind at least, that the universe wants me to live. Either that or it is a true sign that the universe has some major issues it needs to work out. I smile and step back, closing my eyes in fear of what I was about to do. Running, I take a leap and land with a soft clang on top of the carport.
Zombies gather around the carport, screaming and making other unidentifiable noises, but I push on the screen harder and harder until it pops free, falling into the house. The only people who lived here were Zack and his father, so I figure I am safe from any leftover zombies, at least for the moment.
The first thing I do is use the bathroom (refusing to draw attention to myself by flushing the toilet). Then, I do the most important thing, search the house for supplies. In Zach's room I find a bag which I stuff with whatever food I feel like taking out of their kitchen and kept it in my hand in case of an emergency exit. Zack's mother had died years ago from lung cancer caused by being a terrible smoker. Since then Zack's father (I do not remember his name) has never even lit a candle inside the house. Still, there was a half full lighter in the bottom of a drawer that looked as though people had been throwing useless shit in it since the day they had moved in. I throw that in my bag too and began on the search for weapons.
There is a knife in the kitchen which I grab (and a flashlight I find on the way), but I'm still in the search for some kind of gun. There is, oddly enough, one in Zack's father's bedroom (another sign the universe loves me), and I wonder if he got a new one earlier or if he had always kept two in the house.
A strange noise came from the upstairs bedroom; the zombies must have piled on top of each other enough to get on top of the carport and were now flooding into the house. I throw my now heavy bag over my shoulder (it was one of those one strap new backpack things) and looked out the peephole of the front door, listening to the sound of zombies stumbling through the rooms behind me. The front of the house is clear; all the zombies must be behind me. I close my eyes and keep with the number one rule of living with zombies, don't get caught, twist the doorknob and run out. It isn't even close; I beat them out the door, out of what had been safety ten second ago. Out in the street, I pick a direction and start running before a question arises in my head.
Now what?