Through the gap of the sliding door, two people came into view — rigid with shock, clinging to each other. What could they have seen to be that frightened, I wondered — but the thing they were staring at with those terrified expressions was none other than me. Or more precisely: me, who in anyone else’s eyes would be unmistakably a zombie.
It was only then that I realized I had just barged in on the very place where they’d been hiding, holding their breath.
Oh no.
Having fully assessed the situation, the best I could do from here was simply act as if nothing had happened and quietly close the door.
I let my gaze drift aimlessly for a moment before carefully pushing the iron door shut. Through the narrowing gap as it slowly closed, I could still see their eyes fixed on me — but I forced myself to ignore them and pulled the door shut all the way.
A few seconds passed as I stood there blankly in front of the door. Before long, muffled voices leaked out from inside.
“Holy — holy shit… what the fuck?”
“Did it not… not see us? We’re okay, right? We didn’t get caught? Hhh… mom….”
To me, still standing right outside the door, the voices were perfectly clear — but they had been speaking in the kind of tiny whisper that my original hearing would never have caught.
That was a close one… I scratched the back of my head, hit by a wave of awkward guilt that had no real target, and turned on my heel. I was going to have to look somewhere else, I thought.
I started moving my limping leg again, pushing myself forward. The whole time I wandered trying to look like I had somewhere to be, the image of their frightened faces kept jabbing at something in me — but the one thing that offered any comfort was knowing that other survivors were out there.
After wandering around the school for a good while, the rain I’d been expecting started to pour. With nowhere better to hide than the equipment shed, the place I eventually sank down in was the recycling area at the back of the school building.
It looked like the zombies had already swept through at some point — trash was scattered everywhere in a mess — but there was a plywood roof overhead, and for staying out of the rain, nothing could have been better. On top of that, unlike inside the school or out on the field, there wasn’t a single zombie here, which made it far quieter than anywhere else.
I sat down on the step leading up into the recycling area and watched the rain fall.
Beyond the tall school building and the dense pine branches, a sky thick with storm clouds hung heavy and grey. The clouds rolling past fast made it look like something just before a storm.
Wait — is an actual storm coming? The way the wind is picking up matches the mood of this school perfectly. In weather like this, there’s no way a helicopter could even get off the ground.
I thought about the rescue teams that still hadn’t come, and a string of useless thoughts followed one after the other — maybe the reason no one’s come to save us is the worsening weather, well, flights get delayed or grounded when it rains, so — that sort of thing.
What snapped me out of it was glancing down and catching sight of my own hand.
The backs of my hands, resting neatly folded on top of my raised knees, were bad enough that even I had to look away. Not only were they covered in cuts and scrapes, but the skin had gone beyond pale blue — it had faded to a dark, ashen grey. Anyone looking at it would know at a glance it was no longer human skin. It was flesh that was dead in every visible sense of the word, the kind that would be lucky just to avoid being called a walking corpse.
Which meant — even in the wildest scenario where a helicopter appeared in the sky right now and rescue workers came here — I wouldn’t be someone to be rescued. I would be something to be eliminated. Because conscious or not, I was still a zombie, when it came down to it.
…I’m hungry.
Maybe it was that lonely thought that did it — hunger I hadn’t even registered until a moment ago came crashing in all at once. And it wasn’t just a feeling: a low, unmistakable growl rippled from my sunken stomach.
I wrapped both arms around my empty stomach and glanced around for no real reason. I already knew there was no one there — but I felt self-conscious anyway.
Once I confirmed with my own eyes that there wasn’t so much as an ant in sight, I finally let the tension drain from my body and lay down flat on the ground where I’d been sitting.
A trash bag rustled near my head, and the recycling waste scattered on either side of me pressed against my outstretched arms — but I didn’t care. How much dirtier can I possibly get, with all this trash touching me.
If anything, being carelessly thrown away had quite a bit in common with where I stood right now. I lay still, listening to the sound of the rain hammering down, staring up at the rusted ceiling.
I wish I could just fall asleep like this. Would that have been enough to hold out a little longer against this hunger and the strange, gnawing thirst? I was sitting somewhere in those thoughts when —
A sound came from among the black trash bags propped up in the corner of the recycling area. The recycling area was tucked into the far back corner of the school, and with horizontal fencing boxing it in on all sides except the entrance, there was no way it could be a person.
Probably just another trash bag falling over — I told myself, and was about to go back to idly studying the ceiling, when the sound came again.
An irregular rustling that scraped at my ears. That wasn’t just a garbage bag tipping over. Whatever it was, it was alive.
I finally pulled my gaze from the ceiling and turned my head toward the corner the sound was coming from. And then I made unexpected eye contact with something very much alive.
A rat.
A fat, grey-bodied rat with a pink tail and pink feet. One look at its stomach told you exactly how much garbage it had been helping itself to in here.
I stared for a moment at the rat with its small black eyes, and then peeled myself up off the floor, pushing my back upright.
Whatever drove that split-second decision and movement — it was probably instinct. Reflex, you could call it. Maybe a miscalculation born of hunger. But whatever the reason, I couldn’t bring myself to look away from that rat.
I pressed my hand against the rough concrete floor and stood, making my way carefully toward the corner where the rat was. The sound of my ruined ankle dragging along must have been quite loud — but this rat, seemingly stripped of all self-preservation instinct, showed no sign of stopping its work on the trash bag it was busy chewing through.
Fine by me.
Maybe, I thought, this rat just happens to have an exceptional ability to tell humans from things that are no longer human.
I looked down at the fat rat gnawing its way through the garbage. Then, making a mockery of how carefully I’d approached, I bent at the waist and snatched it up in one swift motion.
Squeak squeak — So absorbed in its food, the rat only now registered me as a threat. And just as I was about to toss the rat I’d caught in one hand straight into my mouth —
“…Ah—”
I turned my head. A familiar face. Or rather — not familiar because I knew them, but because I’d just seen them moments ago.
I look at the man and woman staring back at me, hands clamped over their own mouths. Completely soaked through by the rain, looking like a pair of drowned rats themselves, they hadn’t even managed to think about running — they were standing frozen in place, rigid, some distance away.
I closed the mouth I’d opened to eat the rat, and slowly lowered my raised arm. The rat still caught in my grip was making strange sounds and throwing every bit of strength it had into wriggling free from my hand — but against the grip I had on it, that was nowhere near enough.
I looked back and forth between the rat in my hand and the two of them, and then fixed my gaze entirely on them — soaked through and shaking with fear.
I suppose I’ll have to change the order of what I eat.
The decision formed in an instant. I stepped out from the recycling area that had been keeping the rain off and limped toward them. Their feet, frozen like stone statues until now, finally remembered what they were for — but only once the distance between us had already been cut in half.
They stumbled back, and I picked up speed. The driving rain and the mist rising from the ground below blurred my vision — but unfortunately, I was a zombie with every sense developed to an abnormal degree.
I can smell them. The scent of them being alive. I can sense the breath of life in them. And I understand now, fully, that it is the source of my thirst — and the only thing that could quench it.
The living things run from me. I grip the rat in one hand tighter and break into a full sprint. Until their windswept hair is caught fast in my empty, outstretched hand.
I ran through the rain.
