Night falls on the dying city.
Nick stares down at the scenes below him, not believing his eyes. Even though most of the mammals have been reduced to rotting husks of flesh and gore, they're just...continuing on with their night.
Besides for the occasional scream of agony, most of the moving bodies down below are chatting amongst each other like it's any other day. Friends walk with friends, even if a lot of them have to hobble around because of broken or missing limbs.
The lights are still lit and if the scent of death wasn't lingering in the air like a cloud, Nick could have imagined this being a usual evening.
But it's not. Apparently, this is the apocalypse.
Nick backs away from the other window and shuts the blinds just in case any of the undead creatures below were to somehow spot him. The last thing he needs is another corpse banging at his door.
Speaking of which…
"Nick Nick bo-Bick! Bonana fanna fo Fick! Fee fi mo Mick!"
"Judy!"
"NICK!"
"Stop! Just stop! You've been singing for five hours now!" Nick begs as he slams him head into the door multiple times, trying to drive the tune out of his head.
"You knoooow what I waaaant~" the insufferable rabbit sings back at him. Another slam on the door courtesy of Nick's noggin startles the rabbit and sends her scampering in a small circle.
"And you know that you're not getting it!" the fox whines. Judy scratches at the door some more.
"No! Not that either! Can't you just behave yourself? The Judy I knew was never this annoying!"
"Really?" her voice asks tauntingly from the hallway. Nick groans and buries his face into his paws. A migraine is coming on and the last thing his needs is this rabbit pestering him to the point of insanity.
"I don't know! I just...ugh!" He throws his arms on the air and flops back over his couch. A wave of exhaustion washes over him and he craves the sweet embrace of sleep. But he knows that if he passes out, he won't be able to hear Judy coming if she manages to find a way in.
The visual of waking up and seeing a pair of zombie bunny chompers clamping into his flesh sends a cold chill running down his spine.
"Can you just be quiet? If you're so insistent on hanging around, please just hush up for once," the red fox begs. Judy stops her scratching and moves around a little outside the door.
"...Getting tired yet?" she asks in that sickeningly innocent voice of hers. A pit forms in Nick's stomach as he realizes that this might have been her plan all along. Tire him out with annoying songs and scratching just to break in as he sleeps.
"N-no, I'm good. I, uh...got some sleep earlier."
"When?"
"Umm...between the song about meat and the drum solo you did on the door," Nick fibs poorly, not awake enough to come up with anything good.
"...But that means you missed most of my songs! You jerk! I had to come up with those myself!" Judy pouts and thumps her bunny foot quickly in frustration.
"What do you want me to say? Sorry? You're trying to eat me! How am I the bad guy in this scenario?"
"I don't want to eat you! I swear, I just want a nibble!" Judy argues, not realizing that she's defeating her own point.
"Why me?" Nick asks, catching the zombunny off guard. She stutters bashfully and a slight scraping can be heard coming from the floor outside.
"What do you-"
"Why. Me? It's obvious I'm not going to let you in. Why are you even still here? Why can't you just go look for your food somewhere else? You said you ran all the way here, right? Why couldn't you have just gone after someone else after you finished munching your landlady?"
A small squeak emanates from beyond the door.
"You...saw that…?" Judy asks, her tone barely masking how vulnerable she is. Another shot of pain runs through Nick's chest.
"Where do you think I went when you first took off running? I followed you...or I tried to, at least. Didn't catch up until I got to your apartment and, well…" Nick lets his silence finish his sentence for him.
Judy is quiet for a good amount of time after that. Nick thought he wanted the silence, but now that he has it, he'd much rather hear her singing or talking in her usual bubbly voice. At least then, he would know that she is happy. Judy might be a flesh-eating husk now, but she's still his bun.
"I'm sorry you saw me like that…" Judy finally says, breaking the tension. The fox's shoulders slump.
"If you guys are all basically the same as before mentally, then why do you eat us?" he questions weakly. Nothing is making sense in the world and date just seems to enjoy watching him squirm under its new policies.
"...When I first woke up, I wasn't myself. The only thing I could think of was food and I ran to the first mammal I knew I wanted…"
"Your landlady the armadillo?"
Silence.
More silence.
"Carrots, I can't see if you're nodding. Use your words girl," Nick sighs, though a tiny smirk forms on his muzzle. Same old silly bunny.
"Oh! Right, sorry. Yeah, my landlady," she replies with an embarrassed giggle.
"Why her?"
"She charged me a hundred bucks for a new room key!" Judy exclaimed. The fox leaned back at this revelation, trying his best not to burst out laughing despite the dark nature of it all.
"She overcharged you so you ate her?"
"Yeah!"
"Ooookay. A bit over the line but I admire your enthusiasm," Nick chuckles as he rubs his eyes with the back of his paws to wake himself back up.
"Thank you!" He can feel her beaming through the door. She always casts such a happy little shadow on his life, doesn't she?
If only she didn't reek of dead animal.
"So you ate her and then ran straight over here?" Nick asked. If that was the case, she was only a few seconds behind him the entire time and he didn't even see her. She could have sunk her teeth into him from behind and he would have been a goner.
"So...when I first woke up, I wasn't myself. I was just hungry and mad. But once I ate, I felt fine. Better than normal, even! Then I got this really strong urge to come find you. So...here I am, I guess," she explains. Nick listens along, trying to form a visual in his head of the timeline.
"But that leads back to my question, then...why me?" Nick asks again. She takes a while to think of what her answer should be.
"I think...I wanted to be the one to do it," she says slowly, like she's also trying to explain it to herself. Nick's head tilts even if she can't see it.
"Do what?"
"You know...turn you."
Nick takes a dry swallow and shivers.
"I mean, it's going to happen to everyone, right? Maybe I felt that it's something the two of us can go through together. And like I said, it's actually a pretty cool feeling."
"Judy…"
"No no, I mean it! When I died, I was scared too. But then the pain went away and I just sort of...woke back up again. And once I ate, I was more energized than I'd ever been while I was alive. It's amazing, Nick! Plus, if I just gave you a tiny bite, you would turn with most of your body intact. A lot of mammals have to deal with missing parts of their bodies and it makes it harder for them to get around."
That makes a bit of sen-Hey, wait a minute!
"Carrots, what if the living come back and fight? What if you turn me and then tomorrow we get wiped out by the military anyway? What if we just rot away into nothing?" Nick asks, his voice lower and more serious than it had been.
"Well...then...we rot away as partners, I suppose."
The only functioning heart in the apartment complex skips a beat.
Nick curses the bunny's ability to get under his skin, even if it's not literally...yet.
But he can't fight the warmth that spreads through his body. Out of all the mammals she could be spending the end of days with, she's choosing him.
A fluttering feeling passed through him and is only quelled by a particularly nasty death scream echoing from outside.
"I...don't know…" Nick mumbles. He idly rubs his head, trying to coax some functioning thoughts out of himself. Is there any way out of this? Is he just fighting the inevitable? Would it really be so bad, getting to spend the apocalypse with her?
Judy sighs from the other side of the door and scrapes her feet along the ground.
"Listen...I know you're tired, and I have a night shift anyway, sooo...think about it? Please?"
Nick does a mental double-take.
"Wait, what? What do you mean night shift?"
Judy chuckles.
"It might be the end of the world Nick, but I still want to help make it a better place. Got a message from Pogo...I mean Bogo...snrt…saying that they need me for tonight."
"Bogo said this? How's he doing?"
"Oh, you know, he's...getting around...pfft...ahaaanyway, I'll let you get some sleep. Just make sure you keep your doors and windows locked. If you let someone else turn you, I swear, no more nice bunny."
With that final word, Nick listens to the sound of her small paws echoing back down the hallway from where she originally came.
Nick is left alone with nothing but his thoughts and the sounds of broken chatter from the undead below.
What should he do?
If he lets her bite him, he'll die and rot.
But if he doesn't, he might not even get the chance to rot alongside her. There's no right answer in this decision, but he can already feel which one makes his heart tingle.
He can't hide away in this room forever. Eventually he'll need to leave when his resources run out. He has until starvation to come up with a decision. But will it even take that long?
The sound of the doorknob jiggling catches his attention and he sits up from his makeshift bed on the couch.
A muffled curse can faintly be heard.
"It's still locked!"
"I-I know, I know! Just...checking...juuuuust checking...heh…" Judy's voice comes echoing back at him.
She scampers off, this time for real.
Silly bun.
She's going to be the death of him. Probably
sometime soon.
Nick gets up and wedges a chair under the doorknob just to be safe.