53. Survivors (aka. 'Zombie fic')

Surviving was lonely. In the aftermath of the final, brutal, city-shattering attack, Starrk spent his days wandering aimlessly through the apocalyptic wasteland left behind. He had no goal and no needs to fill; the walkers did not touch him, hunger and thirst were things of the past, and it did not seem like he could die of exposure. Pretty much the only thing that DID affect him was fatigue.

For, you see, Starrk wasn't a survivor in the conventional sense. If he went to one of the few well-guarded and blockaded sanctuaries, he would not be accepted. He looked human, thought human, and acted human.

But the ugly black stain on his chest marked him otherwise.

Starrk had been bitten during the first wave, back when things were still going bad but had not reached panic levels yet. There was nothing special about his 'death'; the monsters were biting people by the thousands at that point; save for the fact that after he went down, he woke back up.

He'd gone from walking to work, to dying, to sprawled in an ally with a festering, spasming corpse. His first instinct upon awakening, recluse that he was, was to hide and fix whatever had happened himself. Common sense stomped on that train of thought, urging him to go to a hospital and get help (at that point, he had not known the killing zone that hospitals had become, the hundreds of thousands of bitten-but-not-dead who were being 'put down' for the sake of everyone else.)

After regaining his faculties, that's what he tried to do. However, the people on the street looked at him and saw his blood stained clothes, marred skin, ugly bite, and thousand yard stare and panicked.

The screams spooked him, driving him away before they could call in the cavalry and have him shot.

No matter where he went or what he tried the reaction was universal. While he tried unsuccessfully to make connections with other people (soon he would refer to them as humans, a separate species from his own) the war slowly progressed around him. From the sidelines he'd been forced behind, he watched as the military tried and failed to contain the outbreak, as communications failed and help stopped coming, as the riots started and stopped, burning everything then leaving it silent, as the bombs finally dropped, and as hope died and what few voices remained stopped talking.

He watched until the only ones left were him and the walkers.

Farther abroad, he found that some humans had survived and holed up in makeshift bunkers but after the first stray gunshot winged past his head, he gave them a wide berth. Occasionally, he observed supply runs, but he gave the solders their space. He might be alive without any fair reason but that didn't mean he wanted to die.


Starrk encountered Lilynette nearly a year after he was bitten. For once, he hadn't been wandering; he'd been reclining on the couch of a long-abandoned employee break room when he heard yelling in the streets.

Startled (most humans stayed as quiet as possible to avoid detection), he looked out the window and saw an older man standing over a kneeling green-haired girl. The man looked terrified and guilty and was holding a cricket bat while the girl looked sick; she was clutching her stomach and seemed not to notice the peril she was in.

Soberly, Starrk recognized the signs of infection and the dripping, blackening wound in her stomach as a bite. He knew what was going to happen and that the man with the bat most likely had the correct, most merciful plan.

But when the weapon crashed down with a brutal *crack*, he found himself leaping through the window, narrowing his eyes and growling at the man. All it took was a glimpse of the bite on his chest and the rigid ichor ring-scar around his neck (a 'gift' from some humans who'd refused to accept him as anything but a monster) and the guy was dropping his weapon and fleeing, screaming for his companions.

Starrk let him go and knelt over the girl.

She stared up at him blearily.

"I'm dyin'." She sounded blank, like it hadn't sunk in. Her head was a bloody mess from the bat; a wound stretched clear across her skull and down the right side of her face. Even if she hadn't been bitten, survival was unlikely.

"Probably." He wasn't well-versed in comfort.

"You're not…you're one of them?" She eyed him in confusion and reached a trembling hand towards his fangs. He let her grab and hold the ring around his neck, giving her something to focus on in her last seconds of life.

Then the shouting returned – the man with the bat brought reinforcements – and a searing pain pierced his neck. The bullet only grazed him but it sent a splattering of blood all down the front of his clothes and onto the girl before ichor started to heal it over.

Splattered onto the girl and all over her extensive open wounds.

He stood to run but she wouldn't let go.

"Take me with you. Please? I don't want…" her eyes strayed to the blood-stained cricket bat and Starrk understood. He gathered her into his arms and fled the humans, holing up in the basement of building a few blocks away.

Ten minutes later, Lilynette died in his arms.

Then, she woke up.


Happy Halloween, everyone!

(Zombies are in the spirit of the holiday, aren't they?)