Walking With the Walkers

Ch.1: Introduction

I'm dead. I'd like to say that it's really not so bad, but it is. You would think the dead can't feel pain, but we can. The burning fever that killed us remains after we regenerate. It's always there shooting like lava through my spine where it erupts into my brain. Pain, pain, pain, always in pain. It's why we look so sad and mean.

After life has been kind to me. Well, better than it's been to some. I didn't die from being eaten on or bitten. I died from a normal flue that could have been cured with simple antibiotics, but we didn't have access to any. So unlike my fellow roamers I have very little blood on me, no gruesome wounds, and no spilling guts. I think if my hair was a little neater and I didn't stink that I could pass as a human who was simply having a bad year. I don't know why, but how I died was really the only thing from my former life that stuck with me.

I don't remember my name, my family or even how long ago it was that I died. I think my name started with an H but there's no way to be sure. I try to guess who I used to be, what I used to do, how old I am, stuff like that, but nothing ever feels right. Sometimes I just stare at myself in a store window or whatever reflective surface is near me. My gray sweat pants are stained and dirty from the rain and weather. The black Aerospatiale tank top I'm wearing is missing a strap and the hem is unraveling.

My wardrobe tells me nothing of my past life. My best guess would be that my parents were wealthy and I was a stuck up preppy chick. My red hair is longer than it used to be and I've gotten twigs stuck in it from roaming through the woods looking for food. The fact that my hair is still growing coupled with the fact that we are still walking and vocalizing makes me think we aren't really one hundred percent gone.

Sometimes when I'm just wondering around I'll end up at a house. It's your typical white farm house. White, no shutters, two stories, with a red roof and a covered front porch that goes across the whole front of the house. Totally normal other than the layer of mold growing all over it. It's almost in the middle of nowhere and there's a random lone stretch of fence out front. I never go in. I'm afraid of what I'll find. It could be my house, and my family inside or it could just be a family that has been eaten so bad that they didn't come back. You see if a walker eats the human's brain they don't come back as one of us. But we only get the brain on rare occasions. Our teeth aren't strong enough to tear though the human skull. So we only get the brains if the human has suffered some weird death that cracks their skull enough for us to get through. So I just stare at the house wondering why my feet always take me to it.

I don't know if I'm the only one that can choose where I go and where I don't. When a human comes around the others go running to them, but I can choose to stay behind. I know I'm not like the others. They let their hunger guide them and it usually leads them to total death. I choose to satisfy my hunger with animals. Rats, roaches, chipmunks, whatever I can find that is living.

I like to think that I was an animal lover in my past life because when I eat dogs I can't stand it. It does little to ease the pain that is constantly thumping in my head and I just feel worse. I don't want to hurt people. I want to stay behind and out of the way of the bullets that always fly at our heads. I'm not going to lie and say that I have never been shot before, I have and it hurt like a mow foe, but I didn't bleed and it didn't heal. The streak of skin and flesh that was torn off of my arm by a grazing bullet and a bullet hole in my stomach are the only injuries I have.

The others don't like me because I'm different. I have more control over my body than they do. I don't fall into the two categories that I have created for them. The roamers and the lurkers. Pretty self explanatory. The roamers constantly walk around looking for something to sink their teeth into while the lurkers well, they're a little pathetic in my opinion. They just sit around and wait. Wait for the weather to finished rotting them, for a rat to scurry by or on rare occasions for a human to walk by thinking that the lurker is dead. I have to admit that I lived with the lurkers before I realized it was stupid. The humans eventually figured out what the lurkers were doing and started shooting rather they moved or not.

I'd also like to say that I don't ever eat humans, but sometimes the loneliness and the need to feel something other than the constant pain in my spine wins out and I take a life to get the brain. Yes I said that getting the brain was hard, but not for me. I am smart enough that if I really, really want to, I can use tools. I have a big rock that I keep in the pocket of my pants. I use it to get to the brain. I don't like hacking up a human, but brains are my drug and just like any addict I will sometimes do anything to get it.

And like any other drug, eating a brain makes me see things. Memories from the owner of the brain that I know I shouldn't see, but they make me so happy. A kid playing with his dog, a father teaching his son how to shave and his daughter how to dance. These are the things I crave. Moments of life that I know I will never get to experience. But the ones that make me feel human the most are the memories of a husband and wife. Kisses, laughter, love, lust and desire. Those are the feelings I crave most, I think I never fell in love in my past life. If I did, maybe it ended badly. It's just a feeling I have.

I was standing behind the house staring at the back door when I heard someone step out of the brush in front of the house. I sniffed the air. It was a male human. Pain prickled the back of my neck and shot through my spine. It was telling me to eat. To take his life so that I can feel something other than dead for two minutes. But I didn't want to kill him, and I didn't want to get shot either. So when I heard the guy kick in the front door of the house I headed into the brush out back and hid behind a tree hoping that he won't come out there and that I wouldn't be seen and shot.

I looked around me as I wait for him to move on and my eyes landed on a white flower with wide flat petals and a yellow center. Something told me that I knew what it was call before I changed, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn't remember. "Sophia!" the man yelled out and the pain in my brain intensified. "Sophia!" 'Are you crazy? Stop yelling' I think to myself. When I hear him coming closer I press myself tighter into the tree.

Then I see him, kneeling down looking at the flower that I was looking at earlier. His hair is side swept, his dirty face is crumpled up in thought, and his sleeveless plaid shirt offers little protection from the likes of me. With him so close his scent hit me in the face like a speeding brick wall. An involuntary moan left my lips from the pain and the guys head jerked up. His blue eyes met my cloudy ones.

Before I knew it a crossbow was pointed at my eye. I didn't want to die, but it looked like it was about to happen. So I closed my eyes and turned my head to the side waiting for the blow to come. Who knows maybe God won't hold what I have done against me. Maybe I can still go to heaven. But the bolt never pierced my skull. So I opened my eyes and looked at the man who still held the bolt on my face.

He looked confused and I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized that I should be trying to attack him right now. Any other walker would be. So I just stood there. Not moving, not breathing, and not blinking. While he just stood there and stared at me. I had never spoken before, but I realized that if I could turn my moans into audible words that right now would be the time to do it. "Not…" my vocal chords screamed from being used for something other than a growl and I gripped the bottom of my shirt in an attempt to deal with the agony that being around this man was causing me. "…eat…" the second word was more audible than the first, but it still sounded like a growl. "Not…eat…yyyyou." He dropped his bow in astonishment.

"How…? Walkers don't talk. What are you?" he asked. All I could manage was a stiff shrug. "Whatever, yer still gonna die." He growled as he raised his bow back up and pointed it back at my eye. So I closed my eyes again and turned my head to the side so that I didn't have to see the bolt headed toward me. But the bolt once again didn't come. So I opened my eyes to see the guy once again staring at me. He growled before he dropped the bow. "Fuck it." He huffed out as he turned his back on me, picked the flower and started stalking off.

'Why didn't he kill me?' I asked myself as I still stood with my back against the tree. He could have easily shot me and been done with it, but he didn't. Was it because I wasn't fighting back or was it because I spoke and showed him that I was different? Either way I was grateful.

He gave me one more day of misery and I was somehow thankful for that. Maybe I just thought that I was ready to die for good. Maybe he just made me realize that a half dead wasn't so bad after all…