Living in the Land of the Dead

Chapter 1 – Memories Kept Alive...

I suppose I had a name once... I've forgotten now. These past two months, I've forgotten everything about myself except for a few things. I'm a female, I'm around 19 years old and everyone in my family is dead. Everything else has been erased, or stored in my brain to remember later.

We're all dead, every single one of us. We are all infected with something that brings us back, rises us up after we die, but we are never the same again. Never again will we see our families or laugh, cry, smile, love. We are bound to this earth as demons, eating the flesh of anything that has a heartbeat, even if it is a family member.

But, I guess being dead isn't so bad; I mean I have so much time to do what I want. Of course, what I want to do most of all is satiate the hunger that is always deep in my rotting belly. No matter what I eat, I'm always hungry, always looking for more. The most I get nowadays is part of a heart or a small patch of skin, never the good parts. Brains are what we look for, the thick grey matter that quenches our hunger for weeks on end. Our cells crave the stuff but you're a lucky walker if you get even a tiny slither.

We've been wandering around this city for a month and half now, waiting for breathers to come and walk into our trap, waiting for our chance to satiate our ever-growing hunger. The city is crumbling around us, but I'm the only one who notices. I'm also the only walker to go around (or is it shamble around?) the city, thinking of anything other than eating. But, then again, I'm also the only walker that actually thinks... The others are stupid, dumb and slow. They just want food, whether it's a dog or a horse or a human, it doesn't matter. Food is food, right?

There are three types of walkers you should know about and I've named them all so that they're easily identified. The elders are the oldest and the most severely decomposed. Most of the time, they wander around with flesh falling off. They're also the slowest and possibly the least hungry. I think that their stomachs are so decomposed that they can't even stomach food anymore (Stomach, get it? Thank you, thank you, I'll be here for eternity).

Then there are the biters. They're decomposing, but at a slow rate and they're also the smartest. Biters hide in cars, pretending to be dead and then pounce on unsuspecting victims. They're slow, but cunning and they don't care who you are, they'll push you out of the way, kill you or do whatever it takes to have the choicest part of the body.

The newest once I have called newborns. I'm a newborn because I'm hardly decomposed at all. We're the hungriest and we can only go for a couple of weeks without food before we start rotting faster. Newborns are stupid with the hunger instinct completely taking over. Which is why I don't understand why I'm so different from the others; I do remember becoming a walker though. Out of all the memories to be erased, this one is the clearest and the most vivid in my mind.

I was with a group of people, I know that much. There were... five of us I think, three guys and two girls. We were raiding an abandoned house when a truck pulled up outside and a group of angry men stormed in, pointing guns in our faces. I remember I tried to stop one of them from shooting a guy and I think he may have been my boyfriend. Anyway, the bad guy shot me in the chest and left me there to die while my other friends were led away.

The whole transformation is a blur but I do recall seeing complete darkness before I opened my eyes and had a hunger for flesh. But I guess something happened during the transformation, something that has made me a complete outcast in the world of the undead. It's like I'm in between a walker and a breather; like I have the appearance of a walker but my brain is still completely functional. Either way, I hate the way I live, especially because I'm the only one of my kind.

My dead stomach shifts uncomfortably as I realise how empty it is. It's been almost a week since my last meal and I'm starving to death (well, I would if I wasn't already dead). The rest of the walkers shamble aimlessly up and down the streets, occasionally bumping into one another, causing dead bodies to fly everywhere. I'm smarter than this; I stick close to the walls where I won't disturb anyone else. I keep my head down because even though I'm one of them, most know I'm different and they don't like it.

Forget what I said earlier, being dead really sucks. I think that the thing I miss the most is mindless gossip. You know, meeting up with friends over coffee and talking about absolutely uninteresting stuff that in no ways affect your life. I miss giggling over boys and swooning over the hottest celebrities and actors. I think all in all, I miss the small things that make us human. Like, I miss the mundane task of going to the bathroom every couple of hours. It was what made us human; performing this essential task that ensures our survival.

My heart lays motionless in my chest; I no longer feel the comforting bump of it as I relax, or the heavy thumping of it as I see a boy I like. My heart hasn't pumped for a month and a half, and the thought that it will never move again saddens me. Of course, I can't vocalize my worries with the others because I can only say minimal words and besides, they wouldn't listen to me. In this world populated by the dead, I sure do feel lonely...

The rain was starting to pour down as the herd moved toward the centre of the city. I pushed a heavily-decomposed body out of my way, breaking one of the arms off in the process. I winced in disgust and threw the arm down before pushing my way through the crowd once more.

The scent of flesh and blood was clouding the air and the herd surged forward, though I knew by now that whatever it was, there would be hardly anything left. A change in the air sent a whiff of the aroma towards me. This isn't human flesh. It smelt animal, something big like a cow. But what would a cow be doing in the middle of Atlanta? I thought that they were all fenced in at their respective farms.

My appetite completely left my body when I pushed an elder aside and noticed it was a torn up horse on the hot concrete and not a breather. I sighed, regretting not eating last week when I had the chance. If I kept going at this rate, I was going to become a biter.

A noise attracted my attention and I whipped my head around, my greasy, dead blonde hair hitting me in the face. There was someone under the tank that was parked in the middle of the road. I remember the military coming, trying to eradicate us only to be run over. Say what you will about the dead, but we sure know how to ruin a party.

I lifted my nose into the air, trying to catch the scent of what was under there. Yep, definitely a breather, but why hadn't anyone noticed? I suppose that the horse was distracting them, but surely human flesh is much more interesting.

The breather was shuffling under the tank and we locked eyes for a brief second before he clambered up into the tank's door. At the sound of the closing door, some newborns and elders crept over to the tank, leaving biters to pick at the straps of the horse. Newborns started to climb the tank and I tried to pull them off, sometimes pulling arms and legs down instead of full bodies.

"Get... Off..." I growled, my throat screaming in pain as I used my vocal chords for the first time in weeks. A newborn screeched at me and continued to climb the tank. Damn it, this was going to be harder than I thought. I didn't know what it was, but I knew that this breather was not the same as other breathers. He seemed determined to live, while the others gave up as soon as they saw our herd. The light in their eyes died when they realised they were going to be devoured in a matter of seconds.

Not that I can blame them of course, I too was scared of the walkers before I became one. The sound of them sent my heart beating so uncontrollably, I thought I would have a heart attack right where I stood. Now that I am one, I don't find them frightening or scary; I find them a thing to be pitied.

Every walker in the street whipped their head toward the tank as a gunshot came from inside. My dead heart sank; the breather had realised it was too late and had done the deed. I sighed, coughing up dust as my lungs filled with fresh oxygen and breathed out old, stale air. We didn't have to breathe, it was a voluntary thing but sometimes I liked to do it, just so I could feel human again.

"Damn... It..." I muttered to myself and turned on the spot, ready to head back into my house, where I lived when I was a human. The thing was falling apart but I tried to keep it maintained as best as I could.

Before I could make it down the street, I heard a clanging coming from inside the tank. I turned around, curious as to what was causing the noise. The breather was dead, wasn't he? I turned around and headed back towards the tank, ears straining to see if I could hear anything else. There was silence before the breather crashed through the top of the tank. He was alive...