Cold Body, Warm Heart
Chapter One
"Ugh…" I grunt. You don't realise how tiresome it is to grunt all the time, but I guess it's the only real way of communication anymore. A few others grunt back as they walk by, a couple crash into the side of me, making me loose my direction. But I try to regain myself and walk forward, I say walk, really I stumble and shuffle. I don't know what happened but I have a slight limp in my left leg, I try to think of how I got it but nothing comes to mind. All I can remember is that I've been this mall for years. There are different parts, there's a place which the signs call a food court where most of the others spend their time. I don't know why, it's the worst place to be, the lighting is gone, has been for years now. There are strange places called Burger King and McDonalds, stupid names really, cant imagine what human came up with them and thought it was a good idea. The place is dark and it smells bad. But then again, I cant imagine any place smelling good when its full of decaying corpses, I cant imagine I smell that great either.
I shuffle towards a different shop, some place called American Apparel. When I finally reach the door, the place is mostly dead. Mostly dead, get it? Like me… anyway. Its full of tattered clothes which I could never imagine wearing, but then when I look in the mirror, I don't understand why I would choose the clothes I'm wearing now. They are black jeans and a white top, a red sweatshirt over the top, a pair of red trainer type shoes on my feet. My blonde hair is limp and dull, stuck to my forehead because there's so much grease and dirt in it. I look ridiculous, I doubt I had a job, I wouldn't hire me if I looked like this. My bad posture, I need to stand up more. My pale skin, I should get out more. The dark circles under my eyes, I should sleep more. My bad diet, I should eat better. People would respect me more if I did these. But then again I shouldn't be so harsh on myself, I'm dead, what are you gonna do. I miss it though, being human, connecting with people, I miss talking, not that I remember talking to people, but I know I must have done, before, you know, before I died.
I walk out of the store, since looking at myself in the mirror is depressing. But walking past the others is just as depressing. Seeing them lifeless. Some are worse then others. Some still have their skin in tact, only just forming the dark circles under their eyes, I envy them, they still look partly human, some are worse, their skin is practically falling off their faces and some are missing limbs. I look at a guy sat in the corner, dressed in a suit, I imagine he was a respectable human before any of this. But I can see he's loosing it. His pale blue hand lifts up to his face and he scratches, pulling off a large lump of skin with it. I grunt at him, hoping he would stop, but he doesn't, he just scratches more, loosing skin by the second. He doesn't bleed, zombies don't bleed. We don't do much really. We shuffle, we grunt, we shuffle some more, we eat if we can find anything, though there hasn't been anyone around for a few months, so everyone is getting restless. I wonder if any of the others are like me, still thinking. I wonder if they still have any humanity left, or if the infection is too deep in their brain.
That's how I think it started by the way. Infection. I don't know for sure, I cant remember, but to me infection seems like the most likely. I can imagine some crazy doctor thinking his medicine would fix something, and ignored the scientists who told him it would make the humans mutate. I hope that's more likely then this just being in my own imagination because human me is crazy, but if that is the case, human me, you suck. I'd also like to think that infection is more likely then some monkey mutating and killing everyone. I think about these things often, I need something to distract myself or I'll end up like the guy tearing off his own face.
The thing about being a zombie is that you cant form connections. It's all I want to do, connect. Its lonely, being stuck in my own head all of the time. It makes you re-evaluate your life and how shitty it is to be dead. I imagine being human would be good, connecting with people, spending time with them, talking about your family, your jobs, even though I'm still pretty sure I'd be unemployed. But these things don't matter anymore, its all gone. So this is life now. Shuffling along. I still have one friend I guess.
I walk into one of the stores with a stupid name, I don't read the name, reading needs energy which I am loosing day by day since there's no food anywhere. I spot him sat down and shuffle along to meet him. He's my friend. I say friend, that means we just stare at each other for a long time and grunt occasionally, that's all we can do, but it's a vast improvement on my relationships with the other zombies around the mall.
I collapse on the seat next to him and turn my head, which falls sharp and rests on my elbow so I can stare at him properly. He usually sits here, doesn't move much. I think he became a zombie before me, he looks a bit more decayed then me, his eyes are more hollowed out and he has some more scares on his face. His hair was slightly grey from dust, but you could still see flecks of ginger in the right light. I wanted to introduce myself, tell him my name, find out his, but I cant remember my name, I think it began with A, but even if it did, I wouldn't be able to tell him that. I wanted to know his name, I wanted to know everyone's names. Being dead, you forget how special names are, how it can give you a hint into the persons life, their personality, but instead I have to go of what each zombie is wearing. When you look at these people, you can usually guess what they did as jobs, I already walked past a janitor and what I presumed to be an airhostess, but I couldn't imagine what job he did. His jeans were bright green with a black checker pattern, and his shirt was orange with some creature on it which I couldn't remember the name of. Being in an apocalyptic world meant that animals were rarely seen anymore. He grunts at me and I'm guessing the staring is getting awkward so I grunt a sorry and turn my head. If I were human, I would have sighed out of boredom by now, but I guess its nicer to sit here with someone then wandering around aimlessly all on your own.
I try to throw my head back to look at the ceiling but my body is so stiff I cant put it back that far. From what I can see of the ceiling, its grey, like most things here. The paint is cracking and there's mould growing, gross. I sit there for a few more minutes before I hear something coming towards us. I turn my head slowly and see a hoard of zombies shuffling closer. This happens a lot, a group of us travel out of the mall together in search of food. Its better to go out in groups, more chance of survival if we do actually find any humans. All humans want to do is put a bullet through our heads, all zombies want to do is eat the humans, you can understand why we don't get along very well. Although, I'm more conflicted on the matter, I don't want to eat the humans, but I don't really have a choice.
I decide to join the hoard, give me something to do for a while. We shuffle together, no order in our movements, we just travel in a circle, constantly bashing into each other. I try to avoid hitting anyone, but my limp makes it hard not to fall into the others. We turn a corner and walk down a different street, on one side there were abandoned buildings, the other was full of trees, abandoned cars were everywhere. It takes us forever to walk just a short distance. God we are slow. Our bodies stiffen over time which makes movement hard, we only move fast when we see a human we can eat, then we can travel so fast its unbelievable. There were about seven of us, one had clearly only just turned into a zombie, her hair still neat, eyes still bright, it was sad that she didn't survive, another had half his face ripped off so I guessed he'd been a zombie a long time.
The outside is strange. There's a lot more space which is nice since it meant our hoard could space out which meant less crashing, but it was so quiet. You'd rarely pass another zombie. The air was stuffy and the day was gloomy. There were dark clouds in the sky and I was sure it would rain later, not that I could actually feel the cold since I didn't feel anything, but it was still annoying to walk in. I'm distracted as I look at the trees, how bright the colours are, it was refreshing against the rest of the pale world.
"Ugh" grunt several of the others in front of me. I turn my attention back to the road, trying to see what the others are grunting about.
"Come on!" whispers a harsh voice. Wow. That's the first time I've heard someone speak a full sentence in ages! I look ahead and see some humans just as they rush into a building and slam the door behind them. I know that's where we are going now, and I know it wont end up well for them.
Hey guys. Hope you liked the first chapter. I wanted to try something different to my other story. Don't worry, I'll still be carrying on with the other one, but I wanted to see if anyone liked this.
Thanks, please review!