Zombies Need Love Too!

I scowled at his silly behavior.

What the hell are you doing? Get it together, you idiot!
“Grrraaw? Grrrruurk? Youuu idiot grrrr!”

Wait. Did I just...?

“Sasha.”

Yoan calmly called my name as he swung his blade in a wide arc. It sliced through the air with a hiss, neatly lopping off the head of a charging zombie.

Black blood sprayed everywhere like some macabre fountain display.

He strode through the carnage toward me, looking for all the world like the Grim Reaper on casual Friday.

I stood frozen, watching him get closer and closer until he filled my entire field of vision.

Then, right as he reached me, he smiled—the brightest, most dazzling smile I’d ever seen.

“So you can talk.”

You know those movie moments where everything’s utter chaos, but then the camera zooms in and the whole world slows down?

That’s exactly what it felt like.

Even with zombies still rampaging around us, time seemed to crawl to a halt in my little corner of the universe. For once, I actually felt like the protagonist.

Of course, that was only because Yoan was doing all the hard work.

“Sasha.”

“Huh?”

I answered without thinking.

“You just spoke. Like, actual words.”

“Uh-huh.”

I knew that. I couldn’t form proper sentences yet, but I’d definitely spoken. Just like I was doing now.

“And the first thing you said was to call me an idiot?”

Uh... no?

“Grrr... ruurk?”

“Sasha. Be good, okay? If you’re pretending you can’t talk, cut it out. I don’t have that much patience.”

Tell me something I don’t know.

The man had sighed five times during our miserable writing attempt earlier.

I’m not pretending! I can only say a few words right now. I dunno what’s happening to me either!

“Grrraww, grruurk. Only few grrrrrr. Dunno how gruurrk either!”

I gave him my most sincere zombie face while trying my best to explain.

“I’ll trust that you’re not lying.”

I am telling the truth!

Good grief—has this man only ever met liars his whole life or what?

Crunch.

Yoan stepped on the face of the last fallen zombie, expression cool as ice. He wiped the blood from his cheek, then reached out and gently brushed mine.

I tensed, ready for some ridiculous criticism.

But instead, he just smiled gently. “You’re hurt a little… but we’re lucky it’s already healing.”

“Oh.”

Ah, yes. Zombie regeneration. A perk, I guess, if one overlooked the rampant decay and grunting.

“Let’s get out of here. This place is disgusting.”

Couldn’t argue with that. The area around us was now a corpse swamp of shredded undead.

Where the hell had they all even come from?

I nodded and hurried after him.

We still ran into zombies here and there, but not in overwhelming numbers. 

Eventually, the woods fell eerily silent.

Just when I thought we might’ve shaken off the worst of them, Yoan slowed his pace.

“We should rest here. Who knows how much farther we have to go? Better to conserve energy.”

Okay.
“Grrrk.”

***

We stopped near a stream wide enough to call respectable.

Yoan had picked the spot on purpose. The running water masked our conversation, apparently making us harder to detect.

That’s when I got a proper zombie lesson from Yoan 101.

Turns out the undead here had poor eyesight but hypersensitive hearing. The horde earlier had probably been drawn by the sound of our voices.

So of course, I asked the obvious question: “Then why’d you talk to me at all?”

He grinned playfully. “No particular reason. I just wanted to talk to you.”

Yep… this one’s a real one. Certifiably unhinged.

I smiled faintly and avoided his gaze.

“So, why can you suddenly talk?”

“That’s...”

“You don’t know either?”

I shook my head.

“Were there any warning signs before it happened?”

Warning signs... I thought back carefully, and one memory floated up.

Actually, some zombie blood splashed in my mouth during the fight.
“Grrrraw, blood in mouth, grrruhk.”

“Zombie blood? It got in your mouth?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm…”

While Yoan pondered this grotesque revelation, he pulled out a chunk of jerky from his pocket and handed it to me.

I perched on a nearby rock and started chewing thoughtfully.

Not as tasty as fresh meat, obviously, but not bad.

Since he’d sacrificed his jerky to feed me, Yoan was now stuck with a piece of bread. 

I considered offering him a bite back, but who knew what side effects my snack might carry?

Our best option now was to get moving and find somewhere with real food supplies.

“Oh, what if it’s something like this?”

He brushed crumbs from his hands, took a sip of water, and looked up, eyes gleaming.

“What if you need to consume zombie blood or flesh for your functions to return?”

“Eugh.” Absolutely revolting idea.

“Consuming your own kind is grotesque, sure… but there is the potential of it working out.”

I hated to admit it, but he wasn’t entirely wrong.

I couldn’t recall the full plot, but I vaguely remembered the original heroine—Aria—also getting bitten and starting to change.

She’d apparently halted the transformation by accidentally ingesting zombie blood, which her body then... purified, somehow?

Not the same situation, but maybe I’d hit a similar trigger? I was a mutant, after all.

“I have a good idea.”

Looking at the slightly manic gleam in his eye, I had a very good idea what he was about to suggest.

No! It’s not even certain, and a reckless experiment like that is way too gross!

“Not certain, grrrraw! Experiment, grrrk grrrk! Too grooorrr!”

“So you’re saying you’d definitely like to try the experiment, Sasha?”

Hey man! That ain’t what I said!

***

Meanwhile, back at base, Rob had returned from patrol and was feeling rather pleased with himself.

Freshly washed, he sat at the dining table enjoying a glass of sweet juice courtesy of Bliss.

A few crunchy, savory nuts later, and the day’s fatigue had completely vanished.

“I’m worried about his lordship. He’ll be okay, right?”

“I’m sure he will,” Bliss said.

“I’m really anxious. Spending the night outside with a zombie... I should’ve gone with him.”

“Don’t you trust his lordship? At least in the north, there’s no one who can match his skills. Not even you, Rob.”

“Well, that’s true.”

He cracked a peanut shell with a sheepish grin.

“But what if the zombie is threatening him or being a nuisance?”

Bliss paused mid-wipe and tilted her head. “Isn’t it the other way around?”

“...”

And just like that, Rob’s worries vanished.

This was Yoan Keith they were talking about.

“Let’s just eat.”

“Yeah, let’s.”

***

As for us, the forest didn’t believe in things like sunrise, so who knew what time it was when we started moving again?

This was supposed to be a quick mission to secure supplies. That was the plan.

Reality, however, had zombies popping out like badly-timed jump scares.

And to make matters worse, Yoan was completely fixated on my newly discovered speech abilities.

“Sasha. We have no choice.”

“No way! Ack!”

“Look, you’re speaking better already. Don’t you want to improve even more?”

What does that have to do with drinking zombie blood?!
“Grrrrow! Zombie blood! Grurrr! What! Grurrr!”

“You won’t know unless you try. Oh, if that’s too gross, we can do this instead.”

He whipped out a sausage from his pocket and casually smeared it with zombie blood.

“How’s this? Looks just like sauce, right?”

Excuse you?! If it looks so appetizing, YOU eat it!

I genuinely thought I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

Too gross, too depressing, too everything.

But apparently, instinct didn’t care about any of that.

The moment I saw the sausage, my body remembered that first juicy bite and betrayed me completely.

Saliva dripped from my mouth before I could stop it.

Yoan saw it and grinned like a proud chef.

“See? You’re hungry.”

This treacherous body...

I shut my eyes tight and opened my mouth. No way was I going to touch it myself.

Yoan took full advantage of the moment and popped the sausage right in.

“...”

Wait. This is... good? Why?

If I ignored the “zombie blood” part, it basically tasted like a regular sausage.

I scarfed it down in seconds.

That should’ve been the end of it.

But no—Yoan was already holding out a second sausage.

“What’s wrong? Now that we’ve started, we might as well finish the experiment.”

Oh. So this is what food torture feels like…