Everybody writes a zombie story and I want to write, but I'm too tired to think of anything original. So I'm going to write about Raph and Shannon in a zombie apocalypse. I want to write about Shannon too, but I'm too tired to figure out what to do with Hamato Overture right now either. I didn't go back and edit it very well. Or at all, really. AlexHamato is doing the chicken dance and shaking her fanny to Meatloaf right next to me, so I don't have the strength to think critically.

I think I'm going to con some other fandom people to write chapters of this mess.

Raphael stuffed his coat pockets with candy bars from the store shelves. Food lay scattered on the blood smeared floor, the rotting carcasses of gas station patrons swarming with flies as a mangy dog tore at the flesh of what was once a man. He heard scuffling in the back and knew it was a group of humans. Ninja ears heard whispers and zombies didn't whisper, they moaned.

"I'm not dead. Try to shoot me and you will be, fuckers," he yelled as loud as he dared towards the closed door leading to the back room.

He pulled a roll of soap off a shelf and stuck it in the kangaroo pouch of his sweatshirt, since his pockets were full of candy. Usually, as soon a pocket of survivors realized that he was still a warm body, they would cautiously lay down their arms and try to make polite contact. He didn't need anybody else. As soon as he made it to the farmhouse, he'd have all the reinforcement he needed. These people would only slow him down and it was every man for himself.

The door knob to the back slowly turned and Raph crept outside, staying in the safety of the warm daylight, hidden from would-be companions and the undead horde. The sunny air smelled like death. The highway stretched into the horizon covered in silent cars with doors open and glass broken. Bodies and limbs lay scattered on the pavement in bloody specks, dotting the gray cement.

He got back into the tiny red car he'd borrowed and made a swift check for dead people in the backseat, then dumped his candy in the passenger seat and set off on the highway again towards the farmhouse. His cellphone had been silent for a while now. Every hour with no call from his family at the farm made the anxiety in his chest clamp a little more.

Now for the hard part. As the sky dimmed into shades of blue he skimmed the horizon for the most secure looking building. Thankfully in the last two days since he'd been on the move he'd found conveniently fortified warehouses and slept soundly while the undead moaned and scratched mindlessly at the brick walls, wanting his scent.

No more fighting. It wasn't important now. In the beginning he'd gone out at night with a kit of machetes and torn the fuckers to pieces. But every night it made less and less difference. Less people to save and more to hack apart. Then he got a call from Don at the farmhouse letting him know that while he'd been off on his latest tantrum, his family had been pinned down at the farmhouse, barricaded in the cellar. Raph chopped anything in his path between himself and the farmhouse.


He drove through an abandoned town. Looked upscale with some nice stores and a large new elementary school. A warning on a billboard showed the signs of the new sickness and to report immediately to your nearest quarantine center if exhibiting potential symptoms. A vaccine was in the works, but subjects were needed to incubate the virus and nobody seemed willing to be injected with zombie germs, even if it saved humanity.

The car chugged as the gas gauge suddenly dropped to empty and then stopped in the road. Groans echoed from the black tree line, a few deer hopped past over a downed power line with no electrical current. He pushed the little red car into a parking space and then scratched his head. Why? Were the zombie police going to pull up and arrest him for leaving the car blocking the driveway? Probably not. He wondered at how hard civilization dies. Raph pulled his duffle bag full of supplies from the trunk.

Most of the windows were smashed and he heard stumbling heavy footsteps in the grass on the other side of the highway. Only one storefront had bars on the windows and forced the front door open, the little bell over the door jingling welcomingly. He pulled a large metal clamp from the duffel bag and secured the door as best he could, then pushed the lobby desk in front of it for good measure. He surveyed the little pink room and saw a sign written in cheery letters that read "Miss Elsa's Dance Studio." Pictures of little girls in tutus and boys in white leotards smiled from the bulletin board, with a middle aged woman in a long skirt standing proudly behind them. He smelled rot coming from one of the closed classrooms and passed to the back of the building, looking for side doors. Fingernails scratched at the only door leading out of the dance studio and he pushed an old refrigerator that smelled like old food in front of it. The door slowly closed and opened against it.

His heart exploded with pumping blood as he heard music. Definitely a stringed instrument, played by a real person, and very close. Only one small classroom lay in the direction of the music. He pulled out a sai and gently pried the door open. A small figure with a violin in its hands cast on the back wall and he watched for a second, momentarily forgetting about the guttural noises outside the broken windows.

The person holding the violin stopped playing and his ears filled with the sound of wailing. All ages, men, women, the elderly, little children... all oblivious of each other and the world around them. Only aware of the smell of warm human blood. He knew they weren't attracted to him. The person with the violin instantly burst into tears and scurried to hide in a closet.

Zombies don't cry. Unless they're newly infected. Raph ducked inside and decided to tough it out with the current resident until morning and then leave them alone.

Leo would tell him to drop the person at the nearest safe shelter, but there didn't seem to be any left. Raph hadn't seen a safe shelter that wasn't full of zombies hiding from the sunlight or rotting corpses for a full three days.

The figure cringing in the corner sobbed quietly and Raph slowly approached. His instinct was to lock it in and ignore it, but that was probably not the honorable thing to do. "You still alive in there? I won't bite. Not even remotely human, so I don't want to eat you and they don't want to eat me. You can come out or stay in there, for all I care. Don't matter to me either way. I'm going to eat and you're welcome to eat too if you like. Or not. I don't care." He sat facing the closet and opened his duffel bag, pulling out a camp stove and some cans of Chunky soup and a bottle of whiskey. He wanted to drink badly. Just forget the world and laugh at the absurdity of America falling to pieces because they were too greedy to help each other out in the ultimate hour of need. But he needed his wits.

The closet door opened a few inches and a gray eye peaked through the crack. Definitely a girl and even by the small amount visible, he could tell she was young and possibly pretty. But maybe that was a teenage boy's hormones stirring into a monsoon at the faintest hint of estrogen that wasn't in a dead body, milling around with a mouthful of brains.

"You a good person?" she said, in a rather childlike tone.

"Not really, but I'm not going to eat you. Want some soup?" He popped the lid off a can and wafted the meaty smell in her direction.

The closet door opened a few more inches and he could see that she was at least an older teenager, if not a young woman. But she held a stuffed cat in her arms and wore a dirt and blood stained tutu, the violin clutched in her other hand. "All the girls who used to dance with me wanted to eat me so I hid in here. I'm awful hungry. I ate all our lunches. I felt bad about it, but they didn't want them anymore, I guess."

"Yeah, they probably ate Miss Elsa." He briefly looked her up and down for signs of bone density loss, stooped posture and bowed legs, bleeding from the orifices... No blood on her face or on her legs... Eyes seemed blood shot, but no red halo from internal bleeding... "Either come here and get some soup or sit down and shut up," he grunted, his face turning red from shame as he happily surveyed her thighs and lack of a bra under her tight leotard and he shamed himself. Not the proper place or time.

She put the violin down on a school desk as if it were made of glass and then clutched the stuffed cat with both arms as she sat cross-legged in front of him, shaking the whole time. Raph handed her a bowl of soup and she delicately slurped it down, hands shaking violently.

He pulled a bottle of water from his duffel back and sat in front of her, then rummage for a bottle of vitamins, opened the top and fished one out. "Open your paw." He dropped it in her shaking hand.

"Thank you," she said politely, as she swallowed it down.

"No more playing the violin either. You want to be real quiet."

She pouted her bottom lip. "But I don't want to hear them eating each other!"

"If you play, I'll break it." The groaning outside intensified. "Can anything get in here?"

She shook her head. "There aren't windows, even in the bathroom. The door has a real good lock on it, I guess, because they pounded on it and never got in. You seen my mom and dad out there? They said they would come and get me and take me home and they never came." She pulled out a pink cellphone. "I been waiting for them to call back..."

He sighed. "Look, I'm on the move here. So we're going to sleep and I'm going to leave you at the nearest safe place."

She clutched her stuffed cat and said, "No! My mom and dad are coming! They said so!"

Raph scratched his head and wondered if this was normal behavior for an adult or if there was something wrong with her. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen. Why are you green?" She drank the water bottle in one long gulp.

"I'm just naturally ugly." He took plastic off a sandwich and then jammed one in her cold hands. "Eat up."

She nibbled and said, "Do you sleep with them all running around outside? What if they get in? And I want to go help them because I know them..."

His heart sank and he said, "You recognize them?"

"Yeah, one was my neighbor and I thought I saw my mama, but I know she would never do those things. I must have been dreaming or something. She's going to come get me and take me home. You have a mama?"

He packed up the food and yanked out a tightly rolled sleeping bag, unzipped it and laid it out on the floor. "You get in there and sleep. You and your kitty need some sleep."

"Oh, you should! You look real tired." She went to the closet and pulled out a pink fluffly blanket. "I've been using this. We could make a bed and keep each other warm."

The idea of snuggling under a blanket with a cute girl was very appealing, but equally repulsive at the same time, in a very weird way. He should stay vigilant in case they broke in and mauled her. It didn't matter if they mauled him. He rubbed the old tooth marks on his arms and said, "Maybe we should."

"Okay!" She hummed and fussed with the bedding, making a little nest in the corner of the room. "We can stay warm then and I'll sing you to sleep!"

This girl will certainly die if he left her alone or even at a safe point. And it wasn't like he was in much danger of being infected. "Sure. You can sing if you like." Why was he being so nice to this girl? Something about a grown woman holding a stuffed animal and assuring him that her parents would come get her and save her broke his heart. Like a grown child left alone and defenseless. The idea of zombies pulling her to pieces didn't settle too well with him. Not that it was pleasant to watch anybody get eaten, but thinking of her hiding alone and clueless was pretty pathetic.

And it was nice to have a warm body around for a change. A sweet little voice to whisper in his ear as he fell asleep, instead of radio broadcasts in Chinese that he couldn't understand or howling of hungry zombies.

He climbed into the sleeping bag after turning on his UV lamp, attached to the small battery that he carried with him and aimed it at them. She slid in next to him and nuzzled against him, warm and smelling mildly of sweat.

"Good night. Where are we going then? I should send my mother a text and tell her that we'll meet her there." She smiled at him full of peaceful docility.

He berated his wits back to life, which had been meditating happily at the soft curve against his chest. "We're going to New Hampshire to my friends' farm. My family is there."

Wait a minute. He was dumping her as soon as possible. Not taking her to the farm. The farm wasn't a safe house.

Well why couldn't it be?! Weren't they sworn to protect humanity? And if they were the only thing left to protect the handful of survivors, then they would just have to get over their shyness and share their dinner with them. Maybe it would be the beginning of a new kind of acceptance for them. As he fell asleep he pictured the zombies beaten back by the Chinese who had finally finished their forced inoculation trials on their people and flown to America to save them. The refugees living in the cellar at the farm would come to know them as equals and thank them for rescuing them, eventually lauding them as saviors.

The girl in his sleeping back hummed a Katy Perry song as he fell asleep.