It was late at night. Dark, threatening clouds obscured the moon as I walked home from work. I had a job in a small office. See, after the whole apocalypse thing and the dead coming back to life, things had returned to normal.
Almost.
There were still those who remained exactly as I once was- a corpse. A mindless, groaning zombie that seeks none other than the life flowing through the veins of the Living. There weren't many, but there were enough. Occasionally someone would get attacked. They would either be killed by the Dead or rise up again and become one with them. We knew how to handle situations like this- a shot to the head. For them, it was incurable, irreversible.
There was no hope for those who had remained Dead for this long.
I turned down a dark alley. It was unfamiliar, but it was quicker than my usual route. As long as I made my way through quickly, I should have been fine. I would be home with Julie in no time. I smiled at the thought of her. She was beautiful, like a ray of sunlight.
My ray of sunlight.
It was at that moment that I felt a sudden sharp pain. I was down on the ground, kicking in an attempt to defend myself. But there were too many of them. I let out a cry of agony as my throat was torn open and I tried to scream for help, but I only choked on my own blood.
Everything faded. Work, home, my name, Julie- everything.
It was replaced by one thing only.
The craving for flesh.
...
Julie anxiously looked out the front window of her home. R should have been home long ago. She hadn't received a phone call and it was beginning to storm outside.
Had he been attacked?
She immediately shook the bad thought away. R was strong. He would have been able to fight off anything that came near him, or her for that matter.
As if summoned, she saw a familiar shape in the distance. She smiled, but then frowned when she noticed that he was walking strangely. She shrugged it off as thinking he was simply exhausted. Julie walked over the door and opened it to greet her lover. As he got closer, however, she noticed something dark covering his neck. Her eyes widened in concern.
"R?"
He looked up at her slowly as if trying to register who she was. 'Shit', thought Julie as it all started to sink in, 'Not R, not again' At that moment, he seemed to snap. He let out a monstrous growl and lunged at her. She stepped back and bolted into the house, R on her heels. She reached their bedroom and pulled out a gun from the nightstand, aiming it at his head as tears streamed down her face. "I-I'm sorry," she whimpered, her hand shaking, "I-I love you, R..."
And with those words, she pulled the trigger.